


the light (had too much to dream last night)

by palmviolet



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Divergent After S2, F/M, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Joyce has a very bad few weeks, Joyce has powers, Mental Health Issues, Slow Burn, eventual bamf!Joyce, my idea of season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2019-10-17 16:45:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 86,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17564240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palmviolet/pseuds/palmviolet
Summary: lights flicker whenever joyce gets angry. somehow, that’s not the worst of her problems.// or, the joyce has powers au we never knew we needed. au post s2.





	1. The Light Switch

**Author's Note:**

> so, here is the promised longfic. the majority is in hopper or joyce’s POV, and occasionally in will, jonathan, or el’s. 
> 
> i’m hoping to update once a week, as i’ve got the entirety of this first part written already (all 14 chapters). 
> 
> the warnings for this story are as follows:  
> \- domestic abuse  
> \- torture (involving non-consensual use of drugs)  
> \- mentioned child abuse  
> \- swearing  
> \- mental health issues ie anxiety, panic attacks, ptsd & perjorative language linked to it
> 
> title is from had too much to dream (last night) by the electric prunes - go have a listen, it’s definitely part of my inspiration for this fic. i do in fact have a whole jopper playlist on my spotify - my username is palmviolet and the playlist is called 5th & 6th period.

The first time it happened, she was washing dishes in an empty house.

It was dark outside, her car sitting lonely on the driveway, and the only sound was the gentle splash of the soap suds - take, scrub, rinse, repeat. Joyce had once found washing up therapeutic, a nice break from staring at the bills marked red and the bottles accumulating under the sofa, where Lonnie was usually snoring, but now it was only lonely. She missed touch, human touch - she felt the ghost of hands on her waist, lips on her lips, and she shivered.

And still the kitchen remained stubbornly silent. Here - this very room - was where she’d danced with Bob, talked with Hopper over unfiltered cigarettes. Laughed with Jonathan and Will.

This feeling, this emptiness, was ridiculous, she knew. Jonathan was out with Nancy. Will was having a sleepover with the other boys. Hopper was doing movie night with El. (Bob was gone, but she tried not to think about that so much anymore.) They were all only a phone call away - but every time she considered it, put her hand on the receiver, she stopped. Thought about how ridiculous, almost crazy, she would sound interrupting their plans for- well, for her own selfish loneliness.

Joyce frowned down at her hands. They were frozen in the act of washing a plate, stinging in the soapy water, and she sighed, thinking of longer and lonelier nights to come. Jonathan was going to college soon, and Will wouldn’t be that far behind. Then it really would just be her, rattling around in her shabby house. Growing older and creakier alone.

She glimpsed movement outside in her peripheral vision and her head jerked up. At first she noticed nothing out of the ordinary - the yard, the shed, the leaves rustling in the breeze - but then she saw a point of light tucked at the edge of the treeline. It was dim at first, but it grew steadily brighter until the whole yard was illuminated in a soft, warm glow.

Her first thought - _Will, something’s happened to Will, that_ thing _is back_ \- sent her racing out the back door, her hands dripping warm water. It was warm outside, and the stars were out; it couldn’t have been more different to those long nights back in ‘83. Still, her heart was pounding as she approached the trees, the light almost blinding. 

But when she reached the spot, it was like a switch had been flipped - the woods were plunged into darkness once more. Almost frantic, she looked around searchingly. But there was nothing. No christmas lights, no monster clawing its way through the ground. The night was mild and calm, a gentle breeze nudging her hair. 

She turned back to the house, shaking her head at herself. She had enough on her plate without adding _seeing things_ to the list - and the two glasses of wine she’d had with dinner (a rather watery carbonara made from a box) can’t have helped. 

So she walked back across the yard, her loneliness sitting heavy on her chest. _Fuck this_ , she thought, and just like that light poured over her like liquid gold, pooling in the yard and spilling over the trees.

Joyce turned, more wary than frightened now. The apparent source of the light was still hovering in the trees, peeping through the branches almost shyly. She couldn’t explain it, but there was this- this _feeling_ that radiated from it, a feeling that took up residence in her breast and stayed there. A feeling of hope, almost. Of warmth.

Hesitantly, she turned her back on the light and went inside. When she looked through the window it was still there, glowing stubbornly. Drawing her gaze, lighting up the trees in curious shadows. Like a beacon, calling out for company.

—

That night Joyce dreamt of a ceiling - white, with shitty foam board tiles. She was moving underneath it, the strip lighting flashing past in an endless parade. She could hear the rattle of gurney wheels underneath her, could feel the pinch of a handcuff on her wrist, and a sick jolt of hope rose in her at the sight of a red-lit _EXIT_ sign in the ceiling, but the gurney turned away to more tiles, more flickering lights. 

A vague, ominous feeling of anxiety hung over her as she woke, blinking in the early morning light. There was the smell of cooking eggs - Jonathan, no doubt, making breakfast as the only one who could cook in the house - and her stomach turned. She barely made it to the bathroom before she retched, gagging until there was nothing left. 

Bitterly she sat back and wiped her mouth with the back of her trembling hand. The optimism, the hope she’d felt the day before, had all but vanished. Instead everything - Will, Bob, the lab - pressed down on her chest and made it hard to breathe.

“Mom?” 

That was Jonathan, hovering concerned in the doorway. Quickly she stood up, dusting herself off in a poor attempt at appearing fine. “Hey,” she said, trying for cheerful.

“Are you okay?”

Her son knew her far too well.

“Yeah, uh, I’m fine.” His gaze softened and he stepped closer, reaching out a hand. She took it gratefully. “It’s- it’s just one of those days.”

Joyce hated this, she really did. Her son - who had enough burdens to bear already - looking after his fragile, _crazy_ mom in some weird perversion of the maternal relationship. It had been like this for a long time - too long - but she didn’t know what she could do to stop it, to take care of him for once. Not when he suffered in silence in the dark of his room, while she was all too painfully obvious about her panicked, disordered thinking. 

“Come on, let’s get you some breakfast.”

Mutely she shook her head. “Jonathan, I can’t- I just-“

With every stuttered, halting sentence she hated herself more.

“You have to eat, Mom.” No doubt he was thinking of that awful morning in ‘83, when Will was missing-

No one was missing, everyone was fine and happy (relatively). So why the fuck was she so torn up? Why were her hands shaking?

Jonathan squeezed her hand and she exhaled slowly, trying to control her breathing. She let him guide her into her chair in the kitchen, where he placed a plate of eggs and toast in front of her, and this was all too familiar.

But he said, “Eat,” and she did.

—

The next time it happened, she was leaning in the doorway of the living room watching Will teach El to play noughts and crosses. Dinner was in the oven - not something out of a box this time - and Hopper was due to arrive any minute. _Just picking up El_ , he would say, and she’d convince him to stay for supper, and they’d all pretend like he hadn’t intended to in the first place.

(Dancing around him was somehow tiresome and exciting at the same time - but she thought she’d had enough now.)

But when he arrived, opening the door with a gust of warm April air, his face was stormy and troubled. 

“Jane,” he said, and his tone brooked no argument. She turned her eyes to Joyce pleadingly.

“Hop, what’s going on?” she asked, for her own sake as well as El’s.

“Jane, we gotta go.”

Joyce stared at him. Had he not heard her? “Hop.”

His gaze finally snapped to hers. “What?” he answered, brow lowered with something that looked like anger.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” she said, trying her best not to let his expression cut too deep.

“Don’t worry about it.” 

Joyce felt anger rise within her. The room was getting hotter, brighter. “What the hell, Hop? You can’t just-“

“I don’t have time for this!” he almost yelled, and something snapped.

The lightbulb above them popped.

“Fuck!” Hopper said, showered in glass. Forgetting herself, Joyce rushed forward and began to pick the pieces off his jacket.

“What was that?!” Will said, staring in amazement at the lamp which now hung malformed and ruined. He looked to El, but she looked just as surprised as he was. 

“The bulb blew, that’s all,” Joyce said, injecting as much conviction as she could into her tone. But she wasn’t the type to believe in coincidences.

Hopper’s look had softened and he looked almost embarrassed, as embarrassed as Hopper ever did. “Look, I’m sorry. I- I can’t explain now, but we really need to go.”

She watched him carefully. Something was up, she could tell that much. His shoulders were tight, his hands clenched in his pockets - a stark contrast to his usual relaxed disposition around them. 

“You call me, yeah?” she said, her voice hard. He nodded briskly, and then El hugged Will, then her, tight. 

“Bye,” the girl said, and followed Hopper out the door. 

Joyce put her head in her hands and sighed deeply. They’d been getting back to normal, all of them - and now she had no idea what the _fuck_ was going on with Hopper, with her. 

She’d been having the same tense dream for weeks, and now this thing with the lights-

“Mom, what was that? With the light? It wasn’t El, she looked really surprised-“

“It just blew, baby. That’s all.” She didn’t know why she was feeling so defensive- but then again, she’d been labelled crazy often enough to know when she sounded it. 

“But you of all people-“ 

“It’s nothing!” she said, only belatedly realising she’d raised her voice. Will looked shocked, and alarmed, and she dropped into a chair. “Sorry, sweetie. I- there’s stuff I need to work out right now.”

It was as close to the truth as she could get without sounding like a lunatic, and her son didn’t look particularly convinced. Still, he gave her one of those uncertain yet bright smiles he’d been showing more lately, and she was off the hook. For now.

She sighed and stared at the mess of glass on the floor, thought about getting a broom. Her nose told her dinner was burning, and wasn’t that just a metaphor for how life was going about now?

—

It happened twice more after that. Once in the store, just before closing time - it was dark outside, and she’d hoped to sneak away early, but a regular customer snuck in with ten minutes to spare.

He spent a while wandering the shelves before coming to the till with a carton of milk, and as soon as he approached she wrinkled her nose. He reeked of whiskey, clearly having just come from the bar down the street, and he was reeling, almost falling over.

“Just this, Mr Walker?” 

He huffed, stared at her with unfocused eyes. “Why’d’ya look so disa-disapproving, Joycie? Is it cos I’m drunk?”

She pinched her lips together. She was used to rudeness and coldness at the till, but drunkards were rare.

“If so, thatsa bit hypocritical, from th’woman screwing Hawkins’ most notor-notorious drunk.”

She forgot herself. “If you’re talking about Hopper, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Walker smirked lopsidedly. “So y’admit it? Ha! Crazy Joyce th’slut.”

Fury burned white hot in her veins, and the strip light above them was glowing ever brighter, almost blinding.

“Jesus, what th’fuck?” he muttered, shielding his eyes - and it was lucky he did, because it shattered into a thousand pieces, showering them both in glass. His eyes met hers and she saw that he was terrified. “You’re- you’re fucking crazy, what th’fuck did you do?!”

If this was a more superstitious town, she probably would have been burnt at the stake by now. As it was, Walker ran sloppily out of the store, leaving the milk behind. _That’s one way of getting rid of him_ , she thought dryly, and considered the mess she’d have to clean up. This was getting out of hand.

-

The dreams continued, too. They felt darker, more intense, every time. The latest one she’d had featured the back of a greying head marching in front of her, a sight that filled her with inexplicable panic. She woke with heart pounding, all the lights in her room burning bright although she’d turned them off the night before. 

Of course, Will chose that moment to knock on her door and come in without any hesitation. He stopped dead at the sight of her, trembling in her bed, surrounded by blazing light. “Uh, Mom, do you usually sleep with all the lights on?” He was squinting against the glare, and just like that they dimmed.

Will looked around like she’d just done magic (which- no- but- no- maybe she had). “You can’t tell me it’s _the bulbs_ this time, Mom.” For the first time she noticed that his eyes were round with fear.

“Hey, hey.” She pulled herself out of bed and took him in her arms. “I don’t know what exactly this is, but I promise you you don’t have to worry about it.”

He looked up at her with eyes that understood more than she often gave him credit for. “Can you promise it’s not the demogorgon? Or the lab?”

She knew it would be foolish, and unfair, to lie to him. “It’s not the demogorgon. The lab- the lab’s been the center of everything weird in our lives, so I can’t promise you it’s not that - but I will protect us. That I can promise.”

It was shaky, and not the most comforting of promises, but Will looked reassured. When she pulled back she saw that the glow of the light, previously glaring and alarmed, was now warm and rosy. Her son looked at it with wonder, perhaps sensing that the feeling emanated was not malicious - indeed it felt caring, almost maternal.

God, she was in deep shit.

—

Hopper eyed the whiskey bottle stowed at the back of the cupboard with something like longing. It was right there, an answer to all his problems - well, not an answer, but a refuge from them for a while. God, he’d like to drown himself at the bottom of a long stiff drink. Forget the shit that was weighing him down so hard, like rocks in his pockets as he tried to stay afloat.

(It was the anniversary of Sara’s death in five weeks’ time, but surprisingly that was the least of his worries.)

He’d been thinking recently that he was going crazy - and wasn’t that a buzzword here in Hawkins? - but as a wise CIA friend had once told him, _it’s not paranoia if they’re really after you._

Because he’d noticed vans, popping up all over Hawkins, parking in odd locations on weekends and holidays. (The nature of small town life was that it was impossible to get a tradesman outside of nine to five on a weekday.) They were there outside the school, emblazoned with ‘phone line maintenance’ as if that was a valid cover. (Again, the infrastructure in Hawkins was notoriously abysmal.) They hovered down the road from Joyce’s, squatted menacingly as if they owned the place - and he never saw anyone leave or enter them. They just sat there.

And so he’d taken to dressing El in caps and big coats despite the warm weather, referring to her as Jane in any place there might be a bug, and trying his best not to let her out at all. He was suddenly sick with gladness that he’d taken Owens’ advice - yes, he’d been letting her see her friends occasionally, which was probably a big mistake, but school was out of the question. (Instead he’d been trying to homeschool her, giving her rudimentary math and history, but he hadn’t exactly been a model student - he was tempted to rope in Joyce, who had often played the truant too but had more book smarts than he, but he considered she had enough on her plate. She’d been acting off recently, jumpy and pale, just as he thought she was recovering from the events of last fall.)

Not even six months since the gate, since the so-called mind flayer and the closure of the lab, and shit was going down again. He didn’t know if it was Brenner, some other mad scientist, or just his imagination - but he couldn’t risk it. He wasn’t stupid. (He was, however, in desperate need of a drink.)

The vans weren’t all. That day El had been at Joyce’s, he’d got a phone call from Owens. He barely heard from the man, which was probably for the best, and so as soon as he heard his voice he could tell something was up.

“Hey Chief, I got something important to tell you, so you gotta listen carefully. And I’m gonna fax something to your office.”

“I hear you, what is it?”

“You see in the news a few months ago, the Geneva summit, Reagan and Chernenko?” Owens’ voice was crackling on the phone, and deadly serious.

“Uh, yeah, tell me.”

“Well, they negotiated a lot, peace in our time type shit.”

Hopper scoffed.

“Yeah, exactly. Well, I found some files today, backdated from January. Photos of the meeting. And there, right in the back-“

The fax machine was whirring, and as Owens talked Hopper saw a photo come out. It was small, crappy quality. In the middle were Reagan and Chernenko, looking at a different camera out of the frame, but immediately he honed in on one particular face in the back, aged and worn but still with that sinister, sneering profile.

“Shit,” Hopper said, slowly and disastrously. Because this- this was _shit_. 

Smirking in the back of that photo, right at President Reagan’s shoulder, as if he knew Hopper was looking and that he could do absolutely _shit all_ about this, was Dr Martin Brenner.

So yeah, he needed a drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- the geneva summit refers to a meeting between reagan and chernenko (the then-soviet leader) on january 9th, 1985. they resolved to reopen negotiations, although chernenko did not end the invasion of afghanistan, which would have been a step closer to peace. i’ve taken this and inserted brenner into it, because i feel reagan would very much have supported and encouraged brenner’s work and wanted to use it against the russians in case things with chernenko went sour.


	2. A Sleepless Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan’s concerns about Joyce are mounting, and she and Hopper have a much-needed conversation.

Hopper didn’t call. It had been two weeks since _the incident_ , since she’d last seen him, since they’d last seen El, and he hadn’t called. Even though he’d promised to. Even though they had this understanding, no matter how unspoken, that they were a team. They had to trust each other.

Joyce had spent the evening before hovering by the phone, reaching for it before flinching away as if burned. (And how vividly she remembered the burn of the sparks as Will breathed on the line, months and months and months ago.) Then she resolved that if he hadn’t called by the time she got home from the store the next day, she’d call him. Like they were teenagers playing hard to get. Only the stakes were much higher, here and now.

She spent that night sitting awake in her dark kitchen, smoking her way through two packs of Camels with shaky fingers. She was too afraid to sleep - afraid of waking up to panic and flickering, burning lights, afraid of disturbing her sons further.

At six thirty, weak dawn light straining through the blinds and casting rosy shadows on the floor, she heard a door close and watched as Jonathan crept out of his room, still in his pyjamas. He stopped in surprise when he saw her.

“Mom?” 

She put a finger to her lips with a weak smile. “Will’s still asleep,” she whispered, and he moved closer.

“What’s wrong? Why are you up?” he questioned, matching her tone.

“I-“ she stubbed out her cigarette and stretched, stiff from a long night in a hard chair. “I couldn’t sleep.” She knew it was foolish to make excuses to him, because whatever she said he was likely to think the worst.

“Mom,” he said, and that one syllable made her heart sink. He thought she was crazy, losing her mind. Maybe she was - but to see it written out so clearly on her son’s face in the halflight felt like a physical blow.

“Jonathan, please.” Her eyes were stinging with familiar tears and she blinked them away furiously. “I know what this looks like- I-I _know_ -“

It was like they were following a script, a well-trodden path. She knew what he was supposed to say next - _Mom, I think you need to get help_ \- and he looked like the words were on the tip of his tongue, but he looked away instead. She was grateful for that. 

Joyce stood up, feeling creaky and old, and suddenly on edge. Hopper had to call, why hadn’t he called, she _counted on him-_

She marched to the phone and dialed.

He picked up on the third ring, his voice rough with sleep. “Hello?”

“Hop,” she said, suddenly feeling foolish. “Sorry- it’s so early- but-“

“Joyce,” he said, and there was a warning note in his tone. “I’ll come see you later, we can’t talk on the phone. Jane’s sick, that’s why I’ve been keeping her away from the boys.”

There it was, _Jane_ again. She was El to all of them in private - so what did that mean? Was someone listening? Was the phone tapped, the house bugged? Joyce shuddered at the thought.

“I finish my shift at five,” she said, and that was that. 

—

When he pulled into Joyce’s driveway, there was only one car there, and it wasn’t Joyce’s Pinto. Jonathan was home, then. Hopper decided to wait in the truck, not feeling up to an awkward confrontation with Joyce’s eldest. He was a sharp, fierce kid, a little overprotective of his brother and his mom - though that was hardly surprising - and he’d got it into his head that Hopper’s tenure at their dinner table would be short lived.

And so far he’d been proven right, Hopper thought bitterly. He’d done the disappearing act a little too well, radio silence for two weeks, which was far too long. Joyce, on the phone this morning - even blurred and dull with sleep he could tell something was wrong. 

Joyce’s door opened and Jonathan stalked out. Hopper sat up a little straighter, alarmed. (Jonathan never voluntarily talked to him if he could help it.) 

“Hey, Chief, can we talk?”

He nodded and gestured to the front seat. “Hop in,” he said. Jonathan climbed up and they sat in momentary awkward silence, before everything came rushing out.

“I’m really worried about Mom, she’s barely eating, and what she does eat she throws back up. She’s having these nightmares - she scared the hell out of Will the other day, and last night I don’t think she slept at all-“

Hopper’s frown deepened as he spoke, every word confirming his suspicions that _something was wrong._

“And what’s worse, Will’s convinced she’s got these- these _powers_.”

“Powers?” He raised his eyebrows. “What, like Eleven?” (He’d swept the truck for bugs, found one in the upholstery of his seat, and disposed of it with hate.)

“Not- not exactly. Something to do with light.”

Something settled cold in his chest. He remembered that time two weeks ago, the bulb burning hot and bright and showering them in glass. But no - that was ridiculous. El, sure. But Joyce? Sure, she had her fair share of shit to deal with, her life wasn’t exactly normal. But there was no tattoo on her arm, no association with Brenner or the lab.

“Will’s always had an active imagination,” Jonathan continued. “And Mom? She- I don’t know what she thinks. I- I’m really worried.” He looked down, twisting his hands in his lap. “I think she needs help.”

Suddenly, Hopper knew where this was headed. “Kid- kid, I can’t force your mom to go to a shrink.”

“No- no! I’m not saying force her, but she won’t- she won’t hear it from me. But- she listens to you.”

The kid looked incredibly young then, sitting uncomfortably in the police truck with anxious eyes. Hopper took pity on him, even as he rebelled against the idea of getting involved in this kind of thing. He was afraid Joyce would hate him for it, if he brought it up - he who’d believed in her right at the very start, when everyone was telling her she was crazy.

“Okay, kid, I’ll talk to her. But it’s gotta be her choice, yeah? And you should have a little more faith in her - she’s always looking after you two, even if she’s having a bad couple weeks.”

Jonathan looked suitably chastised, but there was the shadow of worry in his eyes still. Hopper thought _shit,_ because things must be bad indeed.

—

Hopper’s truck was already in the driveway when Joyce arrived, exhaustion weighing on her like a pile of rocks. She should have slept, she knew that much - maybe then Jonathan wouldn’t look at her like she was about to break into thousands of razor-sharp pieces.

As she stepped out of her car, Hopper’s hand landed on her arm and she jumped, turning to face him with all the anger she’d built up over the last two weeks. But he held a finger to his lips and drew her towards his truck. She was too tired to stop him.

When they were what he clearly deemed ‘safe’ in the truck, she was finally allowed to speak.

“What the hell, Hopper? First you stormed into my house without so much as a word and promised you’d call, then you didn’t call, and now whatever the fuck this is!”

He winced. “I can explain all of it, I promise.”

“You’d better!”

“Brenner’s back in town.”

That stopped her in her tracks. Brenner- Brenner was back in town? She thought of him with a mix of panic and pure, steely loathing - and now he was back to terrorise them, to terrorise _El_ , that poor hunted girl he’d kept in a cage like a pet.

“He’s got vans all over, watching - for El, is my guess. That’s why I’ve kept her away. I couldn’t explain on the phone, no doubt they’ve tapped them, and your house and car are probably bugged-“

“My house?!” She felt cold at the thought of unknown, masked men creeping into her house by night, secreting wires in lamps and under tables, while her family lay in their rooms oblivious.

“I can come in and do a proper sweep if you want - but it’s probably best we leave some bugs, maybe the one in your car, so they don’t suspect anything.”

Joyce felt sick. She willed her nerves to calm, her breathing to slow. She didn’t need to look crazy in front of Hopper, too.

He was watching her carefully. “Joyce,” he said. “How are you?”

And wasn’t that a loaded question. “I’m-“ _I’m fine_ , she almost said, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. “I don’t know.”

“You can talk to me, y’know. You can always talk to me.”

She knew that, she did, but she struggled to get the words out. “I- I thought I was fine. After- after Bob, things were shit, but they were always going to be - and I had Will to look after, I couldn’t-“ she stared hard at the dashboard, unwilling to look him in the eye. “But now- now it’s like it’s November again, and I can’t sleep, and when I do I have these dreams-“

She heard Hopper moving and suddenly he was pulling her into an embrace, holding her tight despite the awkward angle, and she melted into him. She hadn’t realised quite how desperate - how _hungry_ \- she’d been for touch, for physical human connection. Tears stung her eyes. This time she let them fall, dripping onto his shirt. 

“Hey, hey,” he said in that rough way of his, but there was a comfort in it. Slowly he drew her back to look into her eyes. “Tell me about these dreams.”

Joyce hesitated. It felt too personal to share, almost - but then again, they’d been through so much together, this tiny thing felt insignificant.

“They- they’re always the same. I’m in this- this _place_ , like a hospital almost, only emptier and _cold_ \- and I’m handcuffed to a gurney and I-I just get this feeling of panic- and lately there’s been this-this _man_ -“

Hopper interrupted her. “A man? Can you describe him?” 

“I don’t ever see his face,” she said. “But he’s got greying brown hair, and he’s wearing a white labcoat.”

A suspicious frown crossed his face, and for a moment it looked like he thought there was something more to these dreams than the crazy imaginings of her feverish brain - but then it passed, and he just looked concerned. “I, uh, I talked to Jonathan.”

Her heart sank. “Oh yeah? And what did he tell you, that I’m losing my mind?”

“Joyce, he’s worried about you.”

She felt guilty at the way she considered her son, almost as an enemy, when Hopper was right. He was just looking out for her, something he’d been doing for far too long out of hideous necessity. 

She studied her hands, twisted in her lap. “He thinks I need help, doesn’t he?”

Hopper’s silence was as good as a confirmation. 

“I- I’ve been down that road before. And maybe- maybe it would help, but,” her voice grew quiet, “I can’t afford it. The drugs, maybe, but-“

The thought of taking them again made her feel sick. The number of times Lonnie had forced them into her hand, told her to “keep the crazy under control” - she shuddered.

Hopper shifted beside her and she hoped he wasn’t about to do something stupid, like offer to pay for therapy. That would be messed up on so many levels. But instead he reached out a hand, and hers stilled under his touch.

“I know it’s no solution, but you can always talk to me. Always.”

She met his gaze, surprised at the intensity of it. He’d been looking at her this way for a while, she realised - a mix of caring, protective, and even adoring. 

The thought was unsettling, but not altogether unpleasant. She’d come to depend on him lately - as evidenced by how she’d reacted to two weeks of silence - and he’d inserted himself into her life surprisingly easily. Coming to family dinners, joking with her kids. Will adored him, she knew - he thought he was a hero (unlike his deadbeat dad). 

Unbidden, her gaze flickered to his lips. 

Then suddenly there was the sound of laughter outside, and Joyce looked away quickly to see Lucas running out of the house holding something up triumphantly, Will chasing after him. 

The moment broken, Hopper coughed awkwardly. “Did you, uh, did you want me to sweep the house now?”

She nodded. “We need to tell everyone about Brenner. So they know to be careful.” Everyone would mean the kids, Jonathan, Nancy, even Steve - her stomach turned at the thought, because it would mean accepting that it was real.

Hopper looked reluctant. “Joyce, are you sure that’s a good idea? We don’t need to freak them all out-“

“And if we don’t tell them? And we keep El away from Mike for no apparent reason, again? The kid has a temper, he won’t keep it to himself-“

He grimaced. “Okay, fine. We’ll have a meeting.”

They fell silent for a moment. His hand was still entwined with hers, and absently she traced circles on it. “Thank you,” she all but whispered. 

He squeezed her hand, and they clung to each other tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a slow chapter this week (as you can probably tell i’m a dialogue fan) but things are beginning to heat up.   
> as always, find me on palmviolet.tumblr and yell at me about stranger things.


	3. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce & Hopper involve the rest of the group in what they’ve learned, and Hopper does a little digging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with regard to all your lovely comments - i’m afraid i’m utterly hopeless at responding, but please know every single one is very much appreciated and when i lose motivation they really help :)
> 
> we get a bit of will pov here. obviously most of this fic will be joyce or hopper’s pov, but occasionally there will be will, jonathan or el’s pov, both for plot reasons and also because i think their relationships are pretty damn important too.

“Hey, Will, the meeting’s at your place tonight, right?”

This came from Max, who smiled from her position against the wall as he walked up to them. Lucas was standing next to her (albeit awkwardly - they’d ‘broken up’ some months ago and he still wasn’t completely over it). Dustin was flicking through some book Mr Clarke had given him, and Mike was slouching despondently, staring at his feet.

“Yeah, it is,” Will said, smiling back at her, though the sight of Mike put him on edge. It had been two weeks without seeing El and he was acting like it was the end of the world - though it was a bit weird, since she had no reasonable explanation for it. 

He shook these thoughts off, because he had something important to tell them before lunch ended. “Guys, I have to tell you something.”

They all looked intrigued immediately, though Mike barely stirred. 

“I think my Mom has powers.”

“What?” Lucas said, sounding cynical as always.

“Powers? What powers?” Dustin asked, stuffing his book in his bag. 

“Well, it’s hard to describe - it’s like she can control light, but she does it subconsciously. Like when she got mad at Hopper the other day - the lightbulb exploded.”

“So it’s tied to her emotions?” 

“You don’t actually think she has powers, do you? It’s just a coincidence,” Lucas said, and Will felt a twinge of annoyance. After all they’d seen, all they’d been through, how was this any less believable?

“It happened more than once! And if I can talk to El in the shadow world-“

That was a thing. It had started with a dream - he’d talked to her in that dark, empty place she’d used to find him - then the next day she’d referred to it as if it had actually happened, and he’d realised he was _different_. It wasn’t a very special power - all he could do was talk to El in his mind, from miles away - but they’d become close because of it. He hadn’t told anyone except the Party, not wanting to worry his Mom or Jonathan - and because it made him feel powerful, not like the baby they treated him as.

“That’s different! You spent a week in the Upside Down, some of it rubbed off on you-“

“I don’t know why my Mom has powers, does it matter?”

“Yeah, it does,” Max interjected. “If she’s like Eleven-“ this drew a harsh look from Mike, which everyone ignored, “-then that means she was involved with the Lab, and they could be watching her.” Will felt cold at the mention of the Lab, even though it had been closed and dark for months. “If she’s like you, then we don’t have to worry about it.”

Lucas threw up his hands. “I can’t believe you’re actually going along with this-“

Will tuned them out as the pair started bickering. 

“If she was like Eleven, surely she’d have a tattoo,” Dustin said reasonably. That was fair - the skin of his Mom’s arms was smooth and blank.

“But how could she be like me? She barely spent any time in the Upside Down-“

Lucas and Max were still arguing. “Hey, break it up!” yelled Dustin. “If you don’t believe it, then let’s test it.”

“What, test my Mom?”

“Yeah, set some lightbulbs in front of her and see what happens. Like in science, we’ll record our results.”

Lucas scoffed, but he looked uncertain. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s do it tonight, and put an end to this crap.”

“Meet at your place, four thirty?” Max suggested. 

Will nodded. “All agreed?” They all muttered their assent except Mike, who was staring into the distance sullenly. “Mike?”

He looked at Will. “Sure, I guess.”

The group began to move off, leaving the two behind. “There’ll be a good reason for El not speaking to you, I promise,” Will said. “That’s probably what tonight is about.”

Mike shrugged. “It’s just- too much like the last time, y’know?”

Will nodded. He did know. He’d been there when Mike was shutting himself off from the rest of them, when El was in hiding. And El had confided to him, in their late night conversations in the shadow world, the pain of their separation - which was why he knew she would never do something like this without a good reason.

“Shit, I gotta go to math,” Mike said, grabbing his bag. “See you later?”

“See you later,” Will responded, and walked to his art class with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation for the evening ahead.

—

When Joyce arrived home her body was thrumming with tension, her stomach in knots. She’d spent the day at work staring out the windows at every van that drove past, wondering if it contained Brenner and a band of men in lab coats with clipboards - or worse, guns. Her shift had been uneventful, at least, and she’d even managed to duck out ten minutes early.

She opened the door, and came face to face with Will.

“Mom, can you come over here? We’d like to try something out.”

He was hovering earnestly as she took her jacket off. Bemused, Joyce followed him to her dining room table, where they’d set up an assortment of different-shaped lightbulbs in a row. The kids had left a chair empty in the middle of the table, while they were crowded on either side - Max and Lucas on the left, Mike and Dustin on the right.

“Uh, what is this?” she said, feeling the urge to laugh. 

“Please, sit down,” Dustin said, drawing the chair out with a chivalrous air. Uncertainly she took her seat. “Mrs Byers, can you concentrate on the lightbulbs please?”

She looked around at them incredulously. “Uh, kids, I don’t know what you think-“

“Can we just try it? Please?” This came from Lucas, usually the more sensible of the group. All their gazes matched - pleading, curious, excited even. 

With a sigh, she turned her attention to the lightbulbs. She didn’t know how - or what - she was supposed to do, so she just stared at them, wondering where the kids had found so many spares. 

After a minute she saw Lucas sit back with a disappointed huff out of the corner of her eye. “Come on, guys, this is stupid.” She was inclined to agree. Her fingers itched, her mouth watered, for a cigarette - but she didn’t like to smoke too much around the kids, so her need remained untended.

“Maybe it’s more of an unconscious thing,” Max suggested and she turned to look at Will, her bright hair swinging. 

Joyce had had enough of this. “Look, I don’t know what Will has told you, but I don’t think-“

The front door opened. El entered first, face alight with excitement, and Hopper was close behind. Joyce smiled, almost unwittingly.

The kids rushed to join their friend and they whispered to each other conspiratorially, but she ignored them. Hopper looked tense and alert, but the look he gave her lit warmth in her. It had only been a day since she’d last seen him, but somehow she’d _missed_ him, like a hole in her chest that was filled by the sight of him.

All the kids gasped aloud behind her, and she turned. Where before the lightbulbs had been dark, they lit up as one. They had a soft, almost rosy glow, like they were blushing.

“Mom,” Will said, and well. Well. 

Hopper raised his eyebrows, a smirk coming onto his face despite the gravity of the situation. Her cheeks felt hot, and the bulbs were only glowing brighter.

The door opened again and Jonathan entered with Nancy and Steve in tow. He stopped short at the scene before them - the lightbulbs, the kids, Joyce - and a dark look came into his face.

“What is this?” he questioned. Behind him, Nancy and Steve shared matching looks of confusion.

“It’s-“ Will started, but Joyce stood up, and behind her the bulbs went dark. 

“It’s nothing,” she finished for him, and sent the kids a warning look. “We have something more important to talk about.” 

Hopper stepped forward, taking this as his cue. “Let me start by saying this is _not_ an invitation to panic, and we’re expecting you all to be sensible. That means no little missions off on your own, is that clear?” He looked pointedly at the kids. Then he took a deep breath, visibly steeling himself. “Brenner and his goons are back in town.”

The effect was immediate. Mike clung to El like she was melting away, while she looked on with frightening acceptance. The rest of the kids began talking rapidly, Dustin apparently explaining exactly who Brenner was to Max. Steve was wide-eyed, Nancy furious, and Jonathan stepped closer to Joyce in the confusion.

“How long have you known?” he asked her, and her heart sank. It was clear what he wanted - a nice, tidy explanation for her behaviour over the past weeks. She couldn’t give him that.

“Hopper told me yesterday,” she whispered back. He frowned, but before he could say anything Hopper called for quiet.

“Hey, did I say you could panic?” he said, his voice authoritative. “You will all continue your lives as normal, with these rules. You do not talk about El anywhere other than this house. That includes over the phone and your radios. If you have to, you refer to her as Jane. You do not visit her in the cabin without being taken there by me. You will sit tight, go to school as normal, and _I_ will sort this out. Is that clear?”

Every single one of them looked like they wanted to protest, but Hopper’s expression was like iron, so they all stood there in mutinous silence. 

“If anyone asks you directly about El, you have either never heard of her or as far as you know she died back in ‘83. You’re smart kids, I’m sure you can work out which to tell them.”

“What are they doing here? I thought they thought El was dead?” This came from Dustin.

Hopper ran a hand over his face. “Kid, I don’t know what they think. All we can do is keep El safe until they’re gone.”

“And how are you gonna get rid of them on your own? Without us, Hawkins Lab wouldn’t have shut down and they’d be in there instead,” Nancy said, her expression fiery. 

Joyce stepped in. “The best thing for all of us right now is to lay low, until we know what it is they want.”

Nancy’s gaze dropped and she muttered something to Jonathan. He nodded, then met Joyce’s eyes with that oh-so-familiar expression of concern. She frowned at him, and turned back to Hopper.

“If that’s it, then we should wrap this up,” he said. She saw Dustin opening his mouth out of the corner of her eye and she sent him a hard look. She really didn’t need to talk about this now - she didn’t want to think about it at all.

As the group began to disperse, she looked at Hopper. “Are you staying for dinner?” she asked, as if everything was normal.

He shuffled his feet. “We should probably be getting back-“

“Please,” El said, approaching them with her hand clasped tightly in Mike’s. “We’re here already, we may as well stay.”

Hopper looked stumped, and Joyce fought the urge to laugh. The girl was incredibly tenacious - just like her pseudo-father.

“Fine,” he grumbled. His eyes were bright, though - it seemed they’d both missed her family dinners (even if she couldn’t cook for shit). “Hey, I’ll help you cook.”

“You’re not doing that for my sake, are you?” she said, the hint of a laugh in her words.

He shook his head with a grin. “You got me.” He ruffled El’s hair and she ducked away, smiling, and they felt almost like a normal family. Almost.

Out of habit, she looked over her shoulder to find Will with her eyes. He was talking quietly to Max, Lucas, and Dustin, his face shadowed and nervous, and she fought the urge to go to him. She’d tried to step back recently, let him be a kid again - but it went against her every fibre. She took a deep breath. 

A hand landed on her shoulder, and she looked up to meet Hopper’s eyes. “We’re gonna get through this,” he said quietly. She nodded and gave him her best attempt at a reassured smile. “Now, what’re we eating?”

—

Early the next morning, Hopper went to the library. He didn’t know what he was looking for, exactly, but he knew he had to do some digging. So he headed over to the newspaper section, sheepishly ignoring the look of disdain on Marissa’s face. 

There was a woman already there, sitting at a desk and reading a file from the sixties. She smiled coyly at him from behind a curtain of coiffed blonde hair, pressing a perfectly manicured nail to her lips. 

He ignored her and began flicking through the papers - ‘68, ‘69, ‘70. He had no idea what year to look at, even what decade - he just hoped he’d know it when he saw it. 

Twenty minutes in, he became aware that the woman was staring at him. He debated whether to ignore her or not, before biting the bullet. 

“Can I help you?” he said, his tone frosty. She didn’t seem put off. She was now wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that only served to make her look obnoxious. 

“Oh, I was just wondering if you needed any help.” Her voice was simpering, sugar-sweet, and he couldn’t be less attracted to her. Yes, she was the kind of woman he’d have gone for in a shot only a few short years ago, the kind of woman he’d have bought a drink and spent the night with without knowing her name - but things were different now.

“I’m fine, thanks,” he responded, turning back to the files.

“I’m Jessica Sharpe,” she said, holding out a hand for him to shake, which he ignored. “You’re the Chief, right?” She didn’t wait for a response. “Are you on a case?”

He looked her over, suspicion clouding his mind. Was she simply flirty, or was she one of Brenner’s people? She didn’t look the type, but then again appearances could be deceiving, and he knew better than most the skill of these government people. 

Then he noticed the headline of a file, poking out from under the one she’d been reading. Everything forgotten, he reached under her arm and grabbed it, ignoring her half-hearted protest. 

_Hawkins Lab Pioneers Mental Health Program_ , 1970. The subtitle read _Dr Martin Brenner leads a team using drug therapies to combat schizophrenia_. The image, grainy in black-and-white, showed the man himself surrounded by other men in lab coats. This was an unusual clipping - he’d found nothing like it - because the lab was so secretive about its projects. But then again, they were probably using this as good publicity to combat the widespread suspicion among the townspeople. 

He wasn’t sure exactly what had drawn him to this file, only that it was significant somehow. ‘70 - that was the right kind of timeframe, and the bit about _mental health_ set his teeth on edge. (The rumors about _Crazy Joyce_ circled in his mind, over and over.)

Reluctantly, he looked at Jessica. “Where did you find this?”

She smiled widely and turned it towards her, reading the headline. “Oh, I didn’t even know I’d picked this up! It must have been tucked in with my stuff. What’s your interest, anyway? _Hawkins Lab_ ,” she read out. “Didn’t that place shut down?”

“Yeah,” he said neutrally. He wasn’t sure he liked where this was headed.

“Ooh, are you a conspiracy nut? That’s so exciting!”

He was beginning to get annoyed. “Listen, I’ve got a lot of work to do, so-“

“Oh, don’t let me stop you,” she said, sitting back. He carefully folded up the clipping and put it in his pocket, aware that she was watching his every move. He wanted to go back to the stacks of files, but he was growing increasingly uncomfortable under her gaze. The knowledge that El was waiting for him at home just made it worse, like she could somehow read his mind. He stood up.

“Oh, you’re not leaving because of me, are you?”

He rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. “Like I said, I’ve got work.”

She sent him a simpering smile. “See you later, then,” she said, twirling a fine blonde strand of hair around her finger. 

Huh. He hoped not.

He left the library with the clipping burning a hole in his pocket, and more questions than answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in terms of lumax, it’s not that i dislike them as a ship (i quite enjoy their interactions on screen), but i literally just found it easier to write with them having broken up, and it made very little difference plot-wise, so...


	4. The Return of Lonnie Byers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A familiar face’s return is distinctly unwelcome, but it does help shed further light on the mystery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the action begins to pick up, basically, and lonnie is a grade-a asshole. warnings for domestic violence.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Nancy’s face was concerned as Jonathan dropped into the driver’s seat. He ran a hand through his hair, wanting more than anything to curl up in bed and sleep for a week. 

“Ugh, I don’t even know at this point, Nance. School is kicking my ass - I’m never gonna get to NYU at this rate, and this thing with Brenner now, and my Mom-“ He broke off, looked at his hands. “She’s worse now than she was when Will disappeared. I don’t know what to do.”

Nancy took his hand and squeezed. “Your mom - I’m sure this will pass. She’s really strong.”

“I don’t know,” he said again, and she gave him a brief hug, then kissed him lightly.

“Let’s go home,” she whispered, meaning his house - and it warmed him inside. He put the car in gear and they drove off, leaving school behind. As Hawkins flashed past around them, he tried to take his girlfriend’s words to heart. _She’s really strong._ His mom was indeed strong, incredibly so - a lesser woman would have crumbled under the weight of the last few years, but she was still standing. And it wasn’t like she was being irresponsible, or a bad mom - he just felt this sick jolt of concern whenever he heard her retching in the bathroom, or hyperventilating in her room. 

He pulled into the driveway, not noticing the extra car until Nancy pointed it out.

“Hey, whose car is that?” she said, and he frowned. It was shabby, beat-up, with rust creeping up from the wheels, and it looked pathetic next to his Mom’s clean, if small, Pinto. 

Suspicion entered his mind and he quickly got out of the car, rushing to the door. Nancy ran after him, called his name, but he wasn’t listening. The blood was pounding hard in his ears.

He opened the door in time to see Lonnie slam his Mom against the wall, hard, her head knocking back with an audible crack. 

“Mom!” he yelled, running to her and trying to pull Lonnie off her.

“Jonathan, good to see you,” his dad said, letting go of his Mom. She slumped against the wall, dazed, and fury built in his veins.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he said, glaring at him with hatred. 

“How come no one told me _my son_ was _alive_ , huh?” 

Joyce came to life behind him, straightening up with a pained expression. “Don’t pretend like you ever gave a shit, you don’t!” she said furiously, the pitch of her voice rising. 

Lonnie shoved her back again. She fell to the floor, and Jonathan saw red. He punched his dad in the face, hard. He went down too, blood dripping from his nose. Nancy was screaming in the background, but all he could focus on was his Mom on the floor, barely moving. This had happened before, his dad hurting his Mom, but he’d never been able to stop it. Now he could do something about it.

Lonnie slowly got to his feet, a fury in his face that had rarely been there before. “I am your dad, you should _respect_ me!” He grabbed Jonathan by the lapels of his shirt and his Mom was screaming “No!” and suddenly there was an explosion of light, glass flying everywhere, and Lonnie was cursing, blood streaming down his face.

Jonathan stared at him, then at his Mom, who was struggling to her feet. This wasn’t the harmless blowing of a bulb - this had hurt Lonnie, physically _hurt_ him somehow. 

It was at that moment that he began to think that maybe his Mom wasn’t crazy.

Then he noticed Will crouched in the corner of the room, trembling. There was blood dripping from his nose. Pure, unadulterated fury filled Jonathan then, bubbled hot inside him, because Lonnie- Lonnie had _hit his little brother._

“Get the _fuck_ out of our house,” he said, slowly and deliberately. 

Lonnie scowled, touching the cut on his forehead with a wince. “You’re fucking crazy, you’re all fucking crazy. She- she belongs in a nuthouse, that’s where she belongs, and if you cared about your mother you’d put her there yourself,” he said, turning to look at Joyce. She jutted out her chin and glared at him.

“Fuck you,” she spat, and the remaining lights in the room were lit up like a warning. “Don’t you _ever_ come back here, looking for money or whatever you’re after. There is none.” 

It rang out in the now-silent room, this painful truth that defined his family’s lives. They were poor, he knew that. Which made Lonnie’s cash-grabbing efforts all the more ridiculous - ridiculous and scary, because when he didn’t get what he wanted he got violent.

Lonnie grabbed her wrist, hard enough to bruise, and Jonathan made to intervene but then the door opened and Hopper stormed in. He went straight for Lonnie and dragged him away from Joyce, cuffing him roughly. 

“You’re going away for a long time, you piece of shit,” he said, and Jonathan wasted no time in running to his mother, who was beginning to sway on her feet. There was blood dripping from her nose, and his stomach turned. He guided her to the couch and she dropped onto it gracelessly.

“Will,” she whispered, and he turned to his brother, who was still curled in the corner of the room.

“Will, did he hurt you?” Jonathan asked quietly, crouching down in front of him.

Will shook his head. “I- I- I tried to get help sooner, but Hopper wasn’t there-“

Jonathan hugged him tight. He wasn’t making any sense, but he was just glad that his brother was safe. He sent a venomous glance over his shoulder at Lonnie, whom Hopper was dragging out the door. It was weird, how perfect the timing was, how unsurprised the Chief had seemed - but they could worry about that later. For now, he had to care for his family.

He helped Will to his feet and then went back to his Mom, who was staring absently into the distance. “Mom? You okay?”

“What? Ye-Yes, I’m fine,” she said, and wiped away the trickle of blood from her nose. 

Jonathan looked at her, really looked, and noticed a thickening dampness in her wild, messy hair. “God, Mom, you’re bleeding.”

She passed a shaking hand over the back of her skull and it came away bloody. She stared at it as if she didn’t know what she was looking at. 

Then Hopper came back in, alone, and knelt before Joyce with a heartbreakingly earnest expression. Jonathan backed away. It felt like he was intruding on something intimate, private. Not meant for his eyes.

He became aware of Nancy standing at the side helplessly, awkwardly. He went to her.

“Sorry you had to see that,” he muttered, and she took his hand.

“Sorry you had to live that,” she returned with a weak smile. “Your dad - he’s really an asshole, huh?”

Jonathan nodded, looked down at the floor. “He’s not my dad. I mean, he is - but not really.”

They hugged, and he turned to look at his Mom. Will was sitting with her now, and Hopper was holding her hand, and he thought, _yeah. She’s gonna be okay._

—

Hopper looked at Lonnie Byers, rotting behind bars at the station, and felt nothing but disgust. His face was still bloody, his breath still reeking of whiskey. He looked like shit - and he was a piece of shit, so finally the exterior matched what was inside.

He remembered only a few short hours ago, when El had rushed up to him as soon as he opened the door. She was frantic, eyes red with tears.

“Dad,” she’d said - still a new thing, that filled him with warmth whenever she said it - “Joyce is in danger.”

That got his attention. “What- what danger? How do you know?”

“Will’s dad - bad man, he’s hurting her. Will showed me.”

Hopper didn’t even _want_ to know what that meant, and Joyce was all he could think about - Lonnie, Lonnie that _fucking asshole_ , was back, and he needed to be there for her. He’d rushed to her house, cuffed the bastard, and tried his best to comfort Joyce. She was shaken and out of it, though luckily not concussed.

And now he was facing the man himself, though he’d rather be anywhere else. It was just them in the station - everyone else had gone home, since it was past nine. (He’d called El, told her he was gonna be late - he’d learnt his lesson on that score.)

“Chief,” Lonnie said, grinning. Like a shark. “Still fucking my wife?”

Hopper burned to punch him, but he knew that wouldn’t get him anywhere. “She’s not your wife, Lonnie. She never really was.”

“Oh yeah? She still has my name, though. She’s _mine_.”

Hopper clenched his fist, took a deep breath, and decked him across the face. Lonnie, when he straightened up again, looked surprised and a little afraid of him, which was all too satisfying.

“Now, you’re gonna tell me what happened in 1970.”

Lonnie scoffed disbelievingly. “‘70? What the hell are you on about? That’s nearly twenty years ago.”

“Yeah, I can count. Something happened to Joyce in 1970. I wanna know what it was.” He was flying blind in this, bluffing, casting the rod and hoping something bit - but Lonnie’s alarmed expression was all the proof he needed to dig deeper. He slammed his hands on the table and the guy flinched.

“Uh, well, Jonathan was maybe four? I dunno - and Joyce was losing her mind. Like, she was going batshit. Panicking at every sound, screaming and attacking me when I came home from the bar. I couldn’t take it anymore, I really couldn’t. Women, right?” His smile was sleazy. Hopper recognised what he was trying to do - Lonnie had always been a sexist asshole - but he had no time for that bullshit. He highly doubted the veracity of his words - Joyce had never, ever, been _batshit,_ and he knew all about Lonnie’s tendency to gaslight.

At Hopper’s thunderous expression, the man rushed to continue. “Anyway, I took her to see a shrink up at Hawkins Lab - they were running this trial for schizos like her. They took her off my hands for three weeks and returned her good as new.”

“Good as new?” Hopper repeated disbelievingly, but the pieces were beginning to fit together. Horrifyingly so - he couldn’t imagine what Joyce might have faced at Brenner’s hands during those three weeks - but at least things were starting to make sense.

“Well, she was docile as a lamb. Didn’t last, of course, she was back to yelling at me within a month, but it was nice while it lasted.”

His stomach turned as he fought the urge to hit him again. “And she never said what they did to her?”

“Nah, I don’t think she remembers. Must’ve fried her brains good, right?” He gave a toothy grin, and Hopper had had enough.

He hit Lonnie hard, and he went down. He didn’t get back up, out cold. Hopper shook out his hand, his knuckles stinging (it hadn’t been a very good punch) and lit a cigarette. _God,_ he thought. First El, now Joyce - the Lab really had its claws deep in Hawkins. 

—

In the early hours of the next morning, Hopper was woken by the urgent trill of the phone. He struggled out of bed, yawning, to find El on the brink of answering it, and he scowled at her.

“What did we talk about?” he said sternly, and she backed down. _Not safe_ , he thought. Who knew who was calling at this hour, and who’d be listening on the line?

He picked up the phone. “Yeah?”

It was Jonathan. “Chief- Chief, please, you gotta come help us. It’s Mom- she’s gone.”

“Gone?” he repeated, ice trickling down his spine. “Gone how?”

“I don’t know-“ The kid sounded distraught. “Will- he had a nightmare and wanted to talk to her, but when he went to her room it was empty. She- she wouldn’t do this, not if she was thinking straight, and I don’t know where she could have gone- I don’t know what to do-“

“Hold on, kid,” Hopper said, and grabbed his coat. “I’m coming.”

He hung up the phone and El rounded on him. “Joyce is missing.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna find her. She’s gonna be fine.”

“Joyce is missing,” she repeated, and he was beginning to get annoyed. He was itching to get out there, to find her and make sure she was safe. “I can find her,” El said, and Hopper stared.

“No, no, absolutely not!” There was this horrible, sick fear in his mind that what if Brenner had taken Joyce, knowing El would try and find her, what if it was a trap- “I will find her, and you will stay here and be safe. I’m serious, El,” he said, and his voice softened. “If we don’t find her tonight, you can try, okay? But- I don’t want to be worrying about you too, tonight.”

El looked up at him with her big eyes. “You love her?” she said in a small voice.

Hopper opened his mouth, then shut it again. He didn’t know what to say, only that this was definitely a conversation for another day. (Where did she get ideas like that anyway?) All he could focus on now was the sick fear in his gut, the constant mantra in his head - _I can’t lose her too, I can’t lose her too._

“I gotta go, kid. Please, don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone. I’m gonna find her, and it’s gonna be okay,” he said, putting on his hat. 

El was looking teary now, her lip trembling, and she rushed to hug him tight. “Please keep her safe,” she said, and Hopper breathed her in.

“I will, I promise,” he said, then stepped out into the darkness.


	5. A Dark and Stormy Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper investigates Joyce’s disappearance, and El makes a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting this a day early, bc i’m impatient.

Joyce had gone to bed with her whole body aching from a long day and immediately her eyes fell closed from exhaustion. She wasn’t a deep sleeper, however, and she woke as the clock struck one fifteen. She lay there in the dark, wanting to go back to blissful, and for once dreamless, sleep, but there was a lingering feeling of unease heavy in her bones. Against her better judgement, she sat up and fumbled for her cigarettes on the bedside table.

She lit one in the darkness, watched the quick spurt of the flame fade into an ember. The night was calm. She liked the dark, she’d decided recently - at least, she liked it when her boys were asleep in bed and she was safe awake from nightmares. 

But there was something loaded in it tonight. Her shoulders were tense, even as she tried to relax them - then she heard something.

A footfall, outside her room. Too quiet, too purposeful to be one of her boys. She swung her legs out of bed, stood up with heart racing. Took a shaky drag of her cigarette.

Then her door swung open, and before she could scream there was a hand clamped over her mouth and the sting of a needle in her neck. Suddenly she felt weak and helpless. Her legs went out from under her. Her cigarette fell from her hand and then she was being carried out of her room, unable to call for help. Then she spotted the gun at one of her captors’ hips and she didn’t want to call out anymore - because she had no doubt these people would not hesitate to kill her boys if they got in the way.

It was Brenner, she was sure of it - but everything was getting hazy, and all she could do was watch herself being put in a van as if from outside her body. Whatever they’d given her, however, didn’t grant the mercy of unconsciousness. She was dazed but present as they flashed a torch at her pupils, checked her vitals unceremoniously. 

“Six, can you hear me?” one man in a white coat said. He leaned his blurry face close to hers, and it occurred to her that she was seeing double. 

She tried to speak, but her tongue felt heavy and thick in her mouth. The man nodded, apparently satisfied.

“We were correct about the dose. Just enough so she’s compliant, not so much she doesn’t wake up in time.”

Another man scoffed, peering into the edge of her vision. “We’re lucky, is what we are. If we’d been wrong he would’ve killed us, like he killed Lewis for screwing up the bugs in the Byers house.”

His words registered with vague alarm, through a drugged veil. She struggled to move, to sit up, but her limbs wouldn’t comply and she just lay there, paralysed.

The first man shushed him with a meaningful glance at Joyce. 

The second man scoffed again. “She won’t remember any of this - I’m telling you, the drug works miracles.”

Then the movement of the van stopped and then suddenly she was in a small, dark room and there was Brenner, hollow-faced and intent. The only thought racing through her mind was _Eleven, he must be after Eleven, he can’t get to Eleven-_

But then there was a strobe light flashing in her face and the sting of another needle in her arm-

And she couldn’t remember the rest.

—

When Hopper arrived at Joyce’s house, Jonathan and Will ran out to meet him, panic in their faces.

“Hopper-“

“Was there any sign of a struggle?” he interrupted, because that had to be his first thought, with Brenner lurking around every corner.

Jonathan shrugged nervously and led him down the corridor to Joyce’s room. “What if it’s something to do with my dad- with Lonnie- she was kinda shaken up after that-“

Hopper stopped, looked him directly in the eye. “Lonnie’s spending the night in lockup. I promise you, kid, he’s not getting anywhere near her.”

Jonathan looked away and gestured to the door of his mom’s room.

Hopper almost hesitated on the threshold, this feeling wrong for so many reasons - the last time he’d been in her room had been straight after Bob’s death, when they’d sat in loaded and grieving silence - but he had no time to waste on sentimentality. He scanned the room with a careful eye.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The covers on her bed were thrown back, but she was a busy woman - he could forgive her having a messy room. Absently, though he was trying not to look, he noticed she had a packet of Camels, an ashtray, and a lighter on her bedside table, sitting atop a well-worn copy of _War of the Worlds._

Despite himself, he commented on it. “Your mom a sci fi fan?”

Jonathan looked up at him with distracted confusion. “Uh, yeah, escapism, I guess.”

Hopper tuned him out, because he’d just noticed something. On the carpet by her bed was a small but prominent scorch mark, about the size of the end of a cigarette. He knelt down and touched it - it was still faintly warm. 

_Shoddy clean-up team,_ he thought, as his mind took several leaps at once.

One, it was Brenner and his team.

Two, Joyce hadn’t gone willingly.

Three, she was coming back.

“What? What is it?” Will asked desperately. They were holding hands, him and Jonathan - and it brought it home to Hopper how despite all their bravado, they were just scared kids. Scared kids who needed their Mom to come home safe.

“Uh, let’s go outside,” he said, in lieu of an answer, because who knew who was listening? He’d swept the house for bugs only a few short days ago, but if Brenner had been here tonight- he couldn’t take any chances.

When they were what he judged a safe distance away, he turned to them. “I think Brenner’s taken your Mom - but I don’t think he meant for you to ever realise she was gone. I think he’ll bring her back before morning.”

“What? Brenner has my Mom?” Will’s breathing hitched, but Hopper couldn’t let him panic.

“Hey, kid,” he said, taking him gently by the shoulders. “I said he’ll bring her back by morning - she’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?” Jonathan asked tersely. “How could you _possibly_ know? Maybe he’s- maybe he’s torturing her right now-“

Hopper sent him a warning look, because that was not helping and Will seemed on the edge of a panic attack. “There was a fresh scorch mark from a cigarette on the floor beside her bed. There was no cigarette there, so someone made an attempt at cleaning up, but they left the scorch mark because as far as they knew there’d be no cause for suspicion, because _your Mom will be back home_.”

“What? Maybe- maybe she dropped it-“

“It was there long enough to leave a mark, and I think she’d notice if she dropped a cigarette mid-smoke. That means she dropped it in the struggle.” 

Jonathan went tense at the word _struggle_. “But- why would Brenner take her? She’s not- she’s got nothing to do with them, the Lab.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself, because after all they’d seen in the last few weeks that fact was growing increasingly unlikely. 

“Kid, I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said tiredly. “And this? This would be one hell of a coincidence.” 

“So what do we do?” Will said, eyes wide. “We have to do something, we can’t just sit here and wait-“

“That’s exactly what you’re gonna do,” Hopper said, his tone brooking no argument. “You’re gonna stay here at the house, both of you, in case she comes back here early.”

“But-“ Jonathan started, and Hopper knew what he was thinking. He was a legal adult now, he had a right to be out looking too - but Joyce would never forgive him if he left Will alone in the house, not after all this.

“You’re gonna stay here with your brother, is that clear?”

The older kid ducked his head and took his brother’s hand. “Come on, I’ll make us hot cocoa, how about that?”

“I’m not a kid anymore,” Will said. He glanced at Hopper, face full of desperation, then ran into the house. 

Jonathan sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Find her,” he said seriously, intently. “Please.”

—

El paced up and down. She walked the length of the cabin twice, three times, ten times - then she flopped down on the sofa and ran her hands through her hair, which now reached past her chin. She hated this, hated not being able to do anything. Hated having to sit here and wait for news. She couldn’t even use the radio Mike had given her, because Hopper had forbidden it. (She was still working out the nuances, but for now he was Dad when she wanted something and Hopper when he was being useless.)

Angrily she directed her glare at the TV and with a flick of her head turned it on. It was some black and white movie from the 50s, starring a woman she recognised from her long days channel-hopping as Vivien Leigh. El watched her cry hysterically, throwing herself at the feet of a man.

“-a cleft in the rock of the world I could hide in!” she exclaimed, and El turned it off again with no more than a gesture. She looked over at the kitchen cupboard, wondered if Hopper would notice a missing Eggo. 

She _hated_ this. Joyce was out there somewhere, maybe hurt, and all El could do was watch TV. If Joyce didn’t come back-

El didn’t know what she’d do. Joyce was the closest thing to a mother she had. Mama - Terry Ives - had gone back to being unresponsive again, and El knew it overwhelmed Rebecca to see her too often. And Joyce- Joyce had been there for her from the very beginning, when Will was missing and Joyce had far too much on her plate already. She’d held her, blindfolded, in the kiddie pool and whispered comfort, told her she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to - when it was her son who was missing, and El was her only hope.

She’d been there for El then, so El should be there for her now.

El yelled in frustration, then a thought came to her. Dad had only forbidden her from finding Joyce - he’d said nothing about using the dark place to find others. 

She flicked the TV to static - she could do it without, these days, but it was the comfort of a routine - and closed her eyes. Immediately everything was black and empty, and she focused on one particular face. He came into view suddenly, a man slumped against an invisible wall, and she walked cautiously towards him.

She’d chosen to visit Lonnie Byers first. It was just a precaution, really - Hopper had told her he was locked up, but El didn’t trust this drunken, angry man. She’d been talking to Will in the dark place when Lonnie had shown up, ranting and raving about not knowing Will was alive (though that sounded like an excuse), and Will had shown him to her. Shown her as he was shoved into a corner, shown her as Lonnie went straight for Joyce when she walked in the door. And El could only watch as the people who were her family in all but blood were attacked by this- this mouthbreather. This _bastard._

Luckily Hopper had come home and she’d told him, and he’d stopped it escalating further - but who was to say Lonnie hadn’t wanted to finish what he’d started?

So now she was staring at Joyce’s ex-husband, Will’s dad, in disgust. He looked pathetic, in truth. He was staring at the floor, his face a bloodied mess. He seemed defeated, but El couldn’t bring herself to feel sorry for him. Not when he’d hurt her family.

She burned to do something, anything, to warn him off - but she couldn’t, not from her dark place. And judging by the extra marks on his face that hadn’t been there before, her Dad had already done something of the sort.

She almost smiled at the thought.

Lonnie dissolved before her and she turned, her next target in mind. Will appeared, distress in his face, and she touched his hand.

“Will,” she said, and he looked at her.

“El- you heard what happened?” He was clutching a steaming mug of something that smelled nice, smelled warm and homely. 

She nodded. “Have you- is she-“

Will shook his head, looked at his feet. “Hopper’s out looking now. He thinks it’s Brenner, but Jonathan thinks she just went off-“

“He told you this? Jonathan?” 

“No, but I can tell. He thinks she’s losing her mind,” Will said, and he looked like he wanted to cry. El hugged him, held him tight, even as her mind was racing. If Papa had taken Joyce- she couldn’t bear to think of it. Brenner remained a spectre in her mind, haunting her, showing up in her nightmares, making it hard to breathe. 

“I have to go, I’m going to find Papa.“ Even as she said the words she shrank from the task. Facing Brenner again would be the hardest thing she’d ever done, but she knew she had to. For Joyce.

Will looked scared, but firm. “Be careful,” he whispered in her ear as they hugged again, then he dissolved into shadow. She was left alone.

She took a deep breath, and then called up the image of her tormentor.

Papa was sitting on an office chair, reading a file with text too small for her to read from her position facing him. He looked unchanged, and her stomach clenched. There was no sign of Joyce.

She circled him, enjoying the fact that he couldn’t see her. For the first time in her life, she had all the power. Yes, she was unable to do anything to him - but it was enough to watch him, unseen.

She bent over his shoulder, looking at the file. Her eyes caught on the word _Six_ , and there was a date with it - June 2nd 1970. There was a photo, too, but before she could get a good look Brenner moved the file, slid it out of her view.

El sighed, and then her hand brushed Brenner’s shoulder by accident - and he looked around violently, as if he’d actually felt it. She stepped back, heart racing, panic building in her veins - what if he saw her, what if he _knew-_

He turned back and she breathed out a shaky sigh of relief. He pulled out another file, and her heart dropped as she read the name. _Eleven_. It was hers, complete with a photo of her looking thin and tiny with shaven head. The very sight of it sent fear pounding through her - because even though she wasn’t that scared little girl anymore, sometimes she looked in the mirror and was surprised to find she was tall and healthy, with thick brown hair. Wearing the colorful shirts her Dad had bought her, rather than a thin hospital gown.

She was so absorbed in her memories that she didn’t notice Brenner’s hands had stilled. It was only when he spoke that her heart dropped like a stone.

“Eleven,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

She pulled herself out of the void, but it was too late - all she could see was the flinty grey of Papa’s eyes as they stared at her, into her very soul, knowing and judging her. _I’ve been waiting for you._

She screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the vivien leigh movie is a streetcar named desire.


	6. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce returns.

It was cold in the woods, despite the fact that it was the end of April. It was dark, and cold, and raining, and Hopper was beginning to lose hope. He swung his torch around in vain, illuminating nothing but bushes and trees. He should go back to the house, wait with Jonathan and Will until morning. Joyce would be returned to them, he was sure. 

He had to be, or else he wasn’t sure how he’d go on.

He sighed and turned back the way he’d come, when suddenly there was a sound behind him. He swung around, getting out his gun and aiming it wildly. He didn’t know what he was expecting - Brenner, the demogorgon, a simple bear - but when he saw who it was he forgot everything else.

Joyce emerged from the trees. She was soaked to the bone, hair plastered to her forehead, shivering. No, not shivering, he noticed as he looked closer - she was shaking, shaking uncontrollably. 

He rushed to her side, pulled his jacket off clumsily and slid it round her trembling shoulders. She looked up at him with eyes that were dull and confused. 

“Jim,” she whispered roughly, and he drew her into his arms.

“Let’s get you inside, huh?”

When they reached the house, Jonathan rushed to his mom and helped her into a chair. They huddled into a hug, the three of them, the family unit, and Hopper smiled at the sight - smiled until he remembered what had brought them to this.

He took the chair opposite her at the table, and took her hands in his. “What do you remember from tonight?”

She looked at their conjoined hands with an expression he couldn’t read. “I- I don’t-“ she took a long breath, apparently to steady herself. “I woke up in the early hours, had a cigarette, then-“ Her breathing was getting faster, shallower. He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember.”

“It’s okay,” he said, but she looked unconvinced. “Joyce, it’s okay.”

Jonathan reached out a hand to meet theirs, and after a beat so did Will. There was this moment of unity, of _family,_ before Joyce withdrew her hands to bury her face in them. “I- I think- they drugged me. There was this- this pain-“ She touched a spot on her neck, indicating it. Hopper moved closer.

“Do you mind?” he said, holding up a hand. 

She made a noncommittal gesture and he swept her hair back, inspecting the spot and trying not to enjoy the moment too much - because she was right there, warm and tender, her neck long and pale and smooth, looking at him with all the faith in the world.

And she was right, and she wasn’t crazy. Because there on her neck - invisible to anyone who wasn’t looking for it - was the tiny spot of a fresh scab from a hypodermic. He stared at it for a moment, before sitting back and passing a hand over his mouth. 

“Is it- was I-“

“You were right, Joyce. They took you.” 

She looked relieved, even as the anxiety took residence behind her eyes - because she wasn’t losing her mind. She was right. They were right.

“Mom,” Jonathan gasped, and his eyes were watering. She reached out her arms and they embraced tightly, her eldest making sounds that were suspiciously like sobs. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and Hopper had the distinct impression that this was private - but apparently they were doing this now.

“It’s okay,” she said tearfully, cupping his cheek. 

Will was next, flying into her arms breathlessly, and she held him long and hard. “Hey, I told you not to worry,” she said quietly, and he laughed into her shoulder.

“I love you, Mom,” he said, by way of an answer. 

“You- uh, you should go to bed, it’s late, and it’s a school night.”

It felt ridiculous to be worrying about that kind of thing now, but Hopper could see on Joyce’s face that she needed the comfort of routine. The kids assented with watery smiles and trooped off to bed, though he doubted they’d be sleeping anytime soon. 

When it was just them, Hopper turned to Joyce with a serious expression. “Can you remember anything else - anything at all?” he questioned, in case she’d been reticent for the kids’ sake.

She closed her eyes, obviously trying to think - but then her breaths quickened alarmingly, growing fast and shallow, and when she opened her eyes they were wild and panicky. She looked at him, and reached for him with a shaky hand.

“I- I’m gonna have a panic attack,” she managed to get out, and he took her hand.

“What can I do?” he said, but she just shook her head mutely.

“I-I-“ she was trying to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out, and suddenly she tore her hand out of his grasp and clutched it to her heaving chest as if burned.

He felt helpless, sitting there while she was struggling to breathe, to think. Tentatively he knelt before her. His hands hovered in case she wanted to take them again. 

“Joyce, I need you to listen to me,” he said slowly, calmly. “I need you to breathe - in, and out, and in, and out. Can you do that for me?”

She nodded, quickly and sharply. He took that as a good sign. He exaggerated his breathing so she could follow it, watching her carefully. 

“Okay, now name five things you can see.”

Her breath jittered, but she looked around obligingly. “Uh, stove-“ She inhaled sharply, but this was a start. “Stove, fridge, uh, table, door, uh, drawing,” she said. He looked around, and sure enough one of Will’s drawings was pinned to the fridge. He smiled involuntarily.

“What’s today’s date?”

“Uh, April- April the 24th- no, the 25th, 19-1985,” she stated shakily, but she was beginning to come back to herself.

“Okay, that’s good,” he said, and when he took her hand she didn’t pull away. “Remember, this is gonna pass. You’re fine. I’m here.”

She was staring at their joined hands like it was all that was anchoring her, and he found that he didn’t mind. 

“I’m here,” he repeated, and then she was leaning her forehead against his, and he breathed her in. She smelled like smoke, and the woods, and something stale and clinical that he’d rather ignore. He felt her breathing begin to slow.

“Thank you,” she whispered finally, though she didn’t move away. 

“I told you, I’m here whatever happens,” he said, and suddenly he couldn’t think anymore because her lips had found his. She was kissing him, hard and desperate, like there was no tomorrow, and he was kissing back-

He pulled away. “Joyce- this isn’t right- you’re not in a good place.”

She looked at him, expression inscrutable. “Maybe not, but-“ She swallowed. “I need-“

“You need me to respect your boundaries,” he said, surprised at the conviction of his voice. “I- like I said, Joyce, I’m here for you, but-“

“But you don’t want me,” she said, and her face had fallen. 

“I never said that,” he whispered, and moved closer again. “I’m gonna wait- until I know you won’t- um, you won’t regret it.”

Joyce gave a brittle smile. “I-I-“ She buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, I’m such a mess.”

Her shoulders were shaking, and he realised that she was still soaked from the rain. “We need to get you out of those clothes,” he said, without thinking, and Joyce gave him the kind of look she’d given him when they were teenagers under the bleachers. 

Unbidden, he started snickering, and suddenly they were both laughing, almost hysterical. It felt freeing to laugh with her, to share some of this shit and find lightness in it. It would be them - them against the world, them together - always, no matter how many Bobs or Lonnies or Dianes came along. 

“Seriously, though,” he said, when they were wiping their eyes from laughing that hard. She sighed and stood up. “Do you- do you want hot cocoa?” he asked, almost shy, like he really was a teenager trying to impress a date. 

She smiled. “Sure,” she said, and went to her room - to change, he assumed.

But when he knocked on her door, mug in hand, he found her asleep on her bed, curled on her side with the sheets knotted at her feet. He put the mug on her bedside table and moved to gently tug the sheets up, before her hand caught his wrist.

“Stay,” she whispered sleepily. He thought about protesting, thought about what that might mean, but she was almost delirious from the past few days and in no state to argue (or be alone). “Stay, please,” she said, almost plaintively, and he took off his jacket and shoes and slid into bed beside her. 

She was warm, and soft, and she curled into him in a move that might have been instinctive. He laid an arm over her, and thought, _what am I doing?_ Because Joyce was beautiful, Joyce was vulnerable, and Joyce had just kissed him. 

_Fuck._

—

Early the next morning he woke to see Joyce sitting up in bed, the sheets pooling around her waist. She looked beautiful, and refreshed, despite the harrowing events of the night. She was wearing a baggy grey t-shirt emblazoned with some sort of Star Trek logo, and with a pang he realised it must have belonged to Bob.

She was lighting a cigarette, and he noticed her hands were steady. She must have sensed his movement, because she turned to look at him with a calm expression.

“Hey,” she said quietly, taking a long drag of her cigarette.

“Hey,” he replied, his voice rough from sleep. “How’d you sleep?”

“I had one of those dreams again,” she said, but she didn’t sound so anxious this time. “Hop, I saw Terry Ives.”

He sat up slowly. “Terry Ives? You’re sure?”

She nodded. “She was being dragged down another corridor. She- she looked younger, I think. She was screaming and shouting - she was coherent.”

Without thinking he held out his hand for her cigarette. She gave it to him with a small smirk and he puffed on it thoughtfully, staring into the distance. “I, uh, I found something at the library.” He found the clipping about the Lab in his pocket and handed it to her wordlessly.

She looked at it without speaking, before finally meeting his eyes. “You- you think that I was part of this?”

“I’m not sure, this is all just guesswork, but it would make sense. Especially if you saw Terry Ives - she was there from ‘70 to ‘71.” 

“But- how can I go through something like that, and not remember?” There was distress in her eyes. “And what about Jonathan, he would only have been four, I can’t have left him for that long-“

“I spoke to Lonnie,” he said quietly.

“You did _what_?” Joyce looked incredulous, and angry. She drew away from him and he hurried to continue.

“I just- I figured you wouldn’t remember if something had happened to you, and he was around then, so-“

“What did he tell you?”

Hopper sighed. “That he took you up to Hawkins Lab for their drug therapies program, and they returned you three weeks later.”

Her mouth gaped. She grabbed back her cigarette and took several desperate drags before she was able to speak. “That- that son of a _bitch-“_

Somehow it wasn’t surprising that Lonnie was the root of their troubles, again.

She stabbed out what was left of the cigarette in the ashtray beside her, then rubbed her temples wearily. Sunlight was filtering through the curtains, casting golden light on her tired frame, and the moment felt strangely domestic - the two of them sitting in bed and sharing smokes. It felt like they could face what was coming together, as a unit. A team.

“Why did they take me last night?” she whispered finally. “What more do they want from me?”

Hopper shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know,” he said, and a heavy silence fell on them. 

Finally Joyce looked over at him. She seemed about to speak, but then there was a knock on the door. She slid out of bed and wrapped a robe around herself before opening the door, and he noticed absently that she was wearing shorts, exposing her long, pale legs. 

“Mom,” he heard Will say. “Jonathan’s making breakfast.”

It was a flimsy excuse for conversation, but Hopper could understand it - Will may have feared his mother’s return was nothing more than a dream.

Joyce smiled. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she said, and it occurred to him that she didn’t want her children to know he’d stayed the night. No matter how innocent it had been.

And, as predicted, she turned to him with a sheepish expression. “I, uh, I’d offer you breakfast, but-“

“No, I understand.” He got out of bed and started lacing up his shoes. Joyce looked torn for a moment, as if she really wanted him to stay, but then he stood up and her face was carefully neutral. 

She brushed an invisible speck of dirt off his collar. “I-“ She swallowed, as if the words she wanted to say wouldn’t come out. “Come by later?” 

He nodded. There would be no more silences like before - there was too much at stake. “If anything else happens, anything at all, you call me, yeah? You call me.”

It was her turn to nod. They stood facing each other awkwardly for a moment, her in her pyjamas and him in his rumpled uniform. Then he pulled her into a hug, and after tensing briefly she melted into his embrace. “Thank you,” she whispered into his shoulder. “For being here.”

He managed to sneak past Jonathan in the kitchen, who was listening to The Smiths loud enough to swallow the sound of the door. Then he drove home, humming along to the radio despite himself. 

When he got to the cabin, however, his good mood evaporated. El ran to him as soon as he opened the door, and there were tears streaming down her face-

“Papa-” she said. “Papa knows I’m alive! He saw me, he saw me!”

“Kid, what the hell did you do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we’ve got a long way to go with this fic still lmao but comment if you’re still here lol, i love you all


	7. A Walk in the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce and Jonathan have a much-needed conversation, and she and Hopper do some digging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so starved for stranger things content its ridiculous  
> i’ve read almost all the jopper fics on ao3 and i’ve resorted to rewatching the show lmao help  
> release the trailer you cowards

“Hey,” Joyce said softly as she entered the kitchen. Jonathan and Will were both at the table, full plates of food in front of them. There was a plate in front of an empty chair, too, and she sat down apprehensively. Her stomach turned at the thought of eating, despite the relative calm of the morning. The house didn’t feel like _hers,_ not anymore. Not after the previous night. It felt alien and dark, like Brenner or the demogorgon were waiting in every corner. Like she couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder.

“You’re not going to work today?” Jonathan said, obviously having noticed she wasn’t in her uniform. Instead she was wearing jeans and a loose linen shirt that she’d found at the back of her wardrobe.

“No, I called in sick. I- I thought we could, you know, spend the day together, as a family.” The suggestion was shy, but she saw Will immediately perk up.

“No school?” he said. “Awesome.”

Jonathan’s look was understanding, rather than concerned. He pushed her plate closer to her. “Eat,” he said. It was piled with eggs, toast, and bacon - and that was a rare treat, because none of them could ever be bothered to cook bacon.

She stared at it reluctantly. She’d much rather have a cigarette instead, but that wouldn’t go down well with Jonathan, not at all.

She took a tentative bite of toast, and her eldest visibly relaxed. God, when would she give him a break? When would he stop having to worry about her?

As if he could read her mind, he turned to Will. “Hey, why don’t you go get dressed? I gotta talk to Mom.”

Will looked between them, eyes uncertain, before leaving the table, and Joyce watched him go with not a little anxiety. Then Jonathan’s hand caught her wrist and he was looking at her earnestly.

“I- Mom, I’m really sorry. I- I should have paid more attention, instead of just dismissing what you’re going through-“

“Jonathan, stop,” she said quietly, because he was beginning to ramble. He looked scared, like he thought he’d hurt her, and her heart broke. “I- it’s my fault for not telling you everything. I’ve been so- so absent recently, and I didn’t want to worry you more, but I just made it worse.”

She took his hand and traced circles on his palm with her thumb. Her boy, all grown up and worrying about her when he should be thinking about other things - his girlfriend, college. (The very idea of college made her heart sink.)

“Mom, it’s on me, I thought-“

“You thought I was crazy,” she finished for him. “Jonathan, this stuff with the lights, with Brenner - it explains a lot, sure, but-“ Her expression was serious. “I’m not crazy, but I’m not _okay._ And I’d like you to always listen to me,” at this Jonathan looked away, shame coloring his face, “but sometimes I won’t make sense.”

“But, Mom, seeing Lonnie- him calling you crazy-“ He broke off. “I’m sorry, I just want you to be okay,” he said quietly, and squeezed her hand.

“Hey,” she said, ducking her head closer to his. “Who’s the mom here? You don’t need to look after me all the time, it’s okay.”

His smile was self-deprecating. “Someone has to,” he said, and well. He’d got her there.

She pulled him into a firm hug. She felt him bury his head in her shoulder, seeking comfort as he so rarely did these days, and she held him close. 

After a minute he pulled back, wiping his eyes hurriedly. “So, what’s the plan today then?”

“I thought maybe we could go to the movies - I think they’re doing reruns of that Star Wars movie Will likes - then get some lunch at that new diner?” She felt almost shy.

Jonathan smiled brightly at her, then went to get Will. While he was gone, Joyce forced down the strip of bacon and moved to slide the eggs in the bin. Small steps, she told herself, still feeling slightly ill.

At the sound of her boys coming down the corridor, she quickly turned with a readymade smile. “Hey,” she said. “You ready to go?”

—-

Hopper looked at the shattered remains of his last decent plate with equal amounts ruefulness and annoyance. It had broken into thousands of pieces as he went to pick it up under El’s forceful stare, causing him to shout “Fuck!” and turn to glare at her.

“What the hell was that, huh?” he said.

She looked apologetic, but she couldn’t seem to get any words out. Tears were beginning to trace down her cheeks again. He sighed and held out his arms. She fell into them heavily and cried into his shirt, and he remembered that she was not only a moody teen but also a traumatised one. 

When she’d explained the situation to him through hiccupping tears, he’d promptly banned her from using the ‘dark place’, as she called it, at all. This, while a sensible move, had caused her to cry harder and shatter the plate. In some ways he understood, because it was her last line of communication - he had shown her life outside the cabin, then taken it all away from her again.

God, did he even deserve to be called ‘Dad’?

When she finally calmed down and agreed to find a good movie for them to watch on TV, he went to the phone and called Joyce.

She picked up on the second ring. “Hop, hey, we were just heading out, what is it?”

“Uh, sorry if this isn’t a great time, but I was wondering - could you come by later? My trailer?” The shitty trailer he didn’t live in anymore, but he was hoping Joyce would understand. 

Clearly she did, because she said, “Uh, sure - about three?”

“See you then,” he replied, and felt a bit lighter. If nothing else, he knew El would be comforted by the sight of Joyce safe and well, after having disobeyed him to help her. He sighed again. How was he supposed to parent and protect a kid who was so much more powerful than he, and in so much danger?

He sat down to watch the movie she’d found - some Western from the 60s - and tried to forget everything that weighed so heavy on his mind. The danger both El and Joyce were in.

It was a relief when he went to go meet Joyce. There was a chill in the air as he walked to his trailer, making sure to keep out of sight of the road. He shoved his hands in his pockets and strode through the trees at a fast pace, a little unnerved at the sudden change in weather - he likes it cold, wasn’t that what Will said? But then he dismissed this out of hand - the Brenner thing had them all on edge, that was all.

After an increasingly brisk twenty minute walk, he reached the trailer. Joyce was leaning against her car, cigarette in hand, and she looked up with a smile as he emerged from the treeline.

“Hey,” she said. Then she must have noticed the dread in his expression, because she frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Not here,” he said, and led her into the woods a little way before turning to her. “El used her powers to try and find you last night,” if she thought he missed the flash of unreasonable guilt in her expression, she was wrong, “and I can’t get much coherent out of her but she seems to think Brenner saw her somehow, and knows she’s alive.”

Joyce looked horrified. “Oh my god, Hop, what the hell are we gonna do?”

“Well, they don’t know where she is yet, so that’s a start. I’m gonna have to think of a backup somehow, a safe house in case they find out.”

“Shit,” she whispered, leaning back against a tree and raising her cigarette to her lips with shaking fingers. It had gone out in the chill of the wind, and without thinking he stepped forward to light it again. The quick dart of the flame, the way her hair was tousled by the breeze, the warmth of her body close to his - he suddenly recalled the hot press of his lips on hers the night before, and stepped back hurriedly.

She looked at him as if she was disappointed, before taking a lazy drag of the cigarette and removing it from her lips. “Are we going to the cabin?” she said, and he noticed she was shivering.

Quickly he shrugged off his jacket and gave it to her, deliberately avoiding a repeat of the closeness they’d shared the night before. She eyed him suspiciously before taking it, relief apparent in her face when she put it on.

“Thanks,” she said quietly. They walked in silence for a few moments, before she spoke again. “Uh, what are you planning to do with Lonnie?”

The very mention of his name made Hopper scowl. “I want him locked away for good.”

Joyce stopped. “Hop, I can’t go to trial, not- not with all this shit going on-“

He stopped too and looked at her with a serious expression. “If we don’t put him away, he’ll come back and he’ll do this again. And this time I might not be there to stop it.”

She flinched visibly, but then her gaze hardened. “If you’re suggesting I can’t look after my own family-“

“That’s not what I meant-“

“That’s exactly what you meant!” She threw up her hands and took an angry puff of her cigarette, which was nearly burnt out. “I may have a lot of issues, but protecting my boys is not one of them!”

“Joyce,” he said softly, and she turned to look at him with a scorching glare. “I know you can protect your kids, hell, you’d do anything for them - but it’s you I’m worried about.”

All the fire seemed to go out of her, and her gaze dropped to the ground. “I can handle him,” she said quietly. “But- but I could do with him paying child support once in a while.”

“We can make that happen, Joyce, I promise,” he said, and she gave him a half smile. They walked back to his cabin in a comfortable silence, the only sound being the rustle of the trees and their footsteps. It was a nice day, despite the cold - and Hopper was filled with unease, because everything was shit.

When he opened the door, El rushed to meet them. She hesitated when she saw Joyce, looking her up and down as if to make sure she was real, a questioning look in her eyes.

“I’m fine,” Joyce said gently, and pulled her into a tender hug. Hopper watched them, a warm feeling in his chest. Joyce was _Mom_ to El in all but name - because there were some things he simply couldn’t give her. 

Eventually Joyce pulled back and studied the kid’s tearstained face. “Hop told me what happened,” she said. “You saw- you saw Brenner?”

El nodded and Joyce drew her to the couch. While they sat there, quietly talking, Hopper busied himself with making coffee for himself and Joyce, and El’s favorite chamomile tea. (Despite her somewhat punk exterior she was just as soft as the rest of the kids, at heart.)

He carried their mugs over, then turned to the box of files he kept on top of the bookshelf (El had already found them once, so there was no use hiding them any longer). He had some digging to do. And if the quiet voices of his daughter and his friend (a label that felt almost childish after all they’d been through) were a comfort while he did it - sue him.

He scanned through the files carefully. All this was old news, he’d seen it all before, but he was hoping that something - anything - would jump out at him, from what he now knew.

Hopper glanced back at Joyce, who had a fond smile on her face as El laughed at something she’d said. It was hard to believe - hard to stomach, in truth - that she’d been subjected to the same program as El, albeit less dramatically, but it was the only explanation that made any sense. He looked at them laughing together and knew he’d kill Brenner if he even came near either of them ever again. 

The revelation didn’t scare him, not at all. It sat hard and heavy in his gut, even as the warmth of their companionship washed over him.

“Are you staring at me?”

He blinked. Joyce was looking at him, amusement in her eyes. He blushed horribly. “What? No, just thinking.”

The pair both had matching expressions that he tried to ignore, and he looked back at the papers spread over the floor without seeing them. Then suddenly there was movement behind his back and Joyce knelt beside him, grasping at one file slipped in with the rest.

It was a photo of Brenner standing with a group of what looked like subjects. She tapped one figure in the backdrop, a woman with short choppy hair and a severe, angular face. “Her,” Joyce said. “Her face, it’s familiar. I know her.” 

Hopper frowned. “You sure?”

She nodded. “She was-“ She closed her eyes, obviously trying to remember. “She-“

El came over and sat with them, staring at the papers with a mixture of revulsion and fascination. 

Joyce suddenly gasped, her eyes flickering open. “I remember - she was Two.” She looked shaken by the memory and the effort of recalling it, her chest fluttering with rapid breaths. Not for the first time, he considered that there was something more to her apparent amnesia than just trauma. That maybe Brenner had done something to her, given her some drug, that was only now wearing off.

El looked wide eyed. “Two? A sister?” She sounded hopeful.

Joyce looked uneasy. “No, I- she- she was helping Brenner. She supported him. She- there was- something _wrong_ about her, like she-“ She broke off and took a deep breath. Hopper touched her arm - a reminder he was there for her. “Like she was sick.” She looked straight at El. “Do you remember her?”

“No, I never met any others,” the girl said. “What- what do you think that means?”

Hopper rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I don’t know, kid, I don’t know.” He met Joyce’s worried gaze. “What could she do - what were her powers?”

She seemed about to answer, but then a lost expression came into her face and suddenly all the lights went dark. Hopper reached for her hands in the sudden gloom and held them tight. “Joyce- Joyce, listen to me, it’s okay,” he said.

Slowly, the lights flickered back on. “Shit, I’m sorry-“ she said, and squeezed his hands. “I don’t- my memories, I can’t-“

Absently he remembered they were trying not to swear in front of El, but that was the least of their worries at the moment. Joyce was looking at her now, and frowning - because the kid was very visibly afraid. He saw Joyce’s jaw tighten.

“I want to take him down. Brenner. I want to destroy him.”

El nodded with dark satisfaction. Maybe it wasn’t a practical solution, or a plan - but it was a promise. A bond they wouldn’t break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, your lovely comments are much appreciated :)


	8. Subconscious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce and Hop do some further digging.

Joyce ended up sleeping in his bed that night, curled into him like it was a normal thing they did, like it was okay. She’d looked nauseous at the thought of spending the night at home, where Brenner could get at her so easily, get at her boys. So they’d arranged for Will to stay at the Wheelers’, while Jonathan had given them some vague plans that most likely involved Nancy. 

So he woke up beside Joyce, again, and this was bad, because he was beginning to get used to it. To the warmth of another person beside him. To the smoky, faintly floral scent of her hair splayed out on the pillow.

He watched her sleep for a while, his hand absently curling through her hair, before he shook himself out of it. First that kiss, which was likely only the fault of adrenaline and stress, and now whatever the hell this was - Hopper was in too deep.

He got up and made them both coffee, before bringing it to her in bed and gently shaking her awake. Blearily she sat up, grasping at the mug. “Cigarette,” she croaked.

He fought the urge to laugh, and handed her one. When he’d lit it for her she had a customary coughing fit, accompanied by a reproachful look, and Hopper smirked-

Then he looked away and stood up, because there had to be a line. “Uh, do you want breakfast?”

Joyce looked a little confused at his sudden change in tone, but she said, “Sure, but I- I couldn’t eat more than a slice of toast or something.”

He tried not to look concerned at this, and no doubt failed. (She was growing increasingly birdlike in frame.)

After breakfast (a silent, if cheerful affair: a solitary slice of toast for Joyce, while Hopper and El both had three Eggos each, doused in maple syrup - Flo’s diet plan be damned) he and Joyce walked back to his trailer, and they parted ways with an awkward goodbye. They’d spent the night all but clinging to each other, and yet Hopper couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes.

God, he was a coward sometimes.

(He didn’t know what he was so scared to find there, if he cared to look - rejection or worse, love? Either way, this was not a good time.)

When he arrived at the station, he slumped into his desk chair and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Before he could wallow any longer, however, Flo marched into his office.

“You got a caller on line one, he’s been holding for over an hour,” she said, and he scowled. He wasn’t that late, was he? He scrubbed a hand through his beard, and Flo’s stare sharpened. “So whose heart did you break last night?”

He remembered the warmth of Joyce pressed against him, sleepy eyes blinking in the sunlight, and the cold as he moved away. _My own_ , he thought. If it was one of the guys, he’d make his customary sleazy quip, but unfortunately Flo knew him far too well. She would recognise that for what it was - a poor defence mechanism.

Instead he just gave her a disparaging look and reached for the phone. But she stepped closer, her gaze serious. “Callahan saw you coming back from Joyce Byers’ place the other morning.”

“Funny, I don’t see how that’s any of his business. Or yours, for that matter.”

She pressed her lips together in a thin line. “All I’m saying is, be careful. She’s fragile, and you’re- well, _you.”_

His hackles rose. He knew he was gruff, brusque sometimes - but Joyce, fragile? “Never knew you cared. And for the record, Joyce is one of the strongest people I know.”

Flo merely raised her eyebrows. 

“And I’ll have no more gossip about her. Or me.”

She walked out with an all too knowing look, and he scowled again. What was it with small towns, and the inability to mind your own business?

He picked up the phone. “Chief Hopper.”

—-

Joyce stared at Melvald’s shitty grey ceiling, bored out of her mind. She was itching for a smoke, but if she went outside mid-shift or worse, smoked in the store, she’d be fired for sure. And she really, really didn’t need to add that to her laundry-list of troubles.

The store was quiet for a Friday. She’d only had two customers in the last hour, and while she didn’t particularly enjoy serving them with her fake plastered smile, it was better than the boredom. She’d already spent the first two hours of her shift rearranging the storeroom, and now she was leaning on the cash desk aimlessly. Nothing to do.

It burned, because this was time she could spend looking more into whatever the fuck happened in 1970, or figuring out ways to bring Brenner down - but she was tied to Melvald’s by the unbreakable chains of _bills to pay._ A kid who fast outgrew his clothes, a house that got trashed far too often.

Joyce shook these thoughts away. They wouldn’t get her anywhere, she knew this. Then she had an idea.

Feeling ridiculous, she crossed the store and grabbed a lightbulb in plastic packaging, before returning to the desk and placing it before her. The day before she’d spoken to El about her supposed powers - the girl was curious, understandably so - and the discussion had not been entirely useless.

“It- I think it’s just subconscious, really. Like when I’m angry, or sad,” she’d said.

El had looked at her, eyes narrowed in thought. “My powers - I think they were… sub-cons-cious at first too,” she said, stumbling over the word a little. “But Papa- Brenner- he made me concentrate for hours. Then I could do it.”

Joyce frowned, deliberately choosing to ignore the shudder of horror that ran through her at this casual mention of such mistreatment. “Concentrate how?”

El reached out a hand and touched the older woman’s forehead, then pointed at the lamp on the side table. “You have to- reach out. Picture it happening. Picture light.”

Joyce stared at the lamp. She tried to picture it being lit, the way its golden glow would flood over the sofa, over them. Tried to concentrate, as El said. It remained stubbornly dark.

She started when a hand landed on hers, and she looked up to El’s warm gaze. “Practice,” the girl had said. 

And so here she was, midday in Melvald’s, staring pathetically at a lightbulb still in its packaging. Anyone could walk in - but then again, she thought, they all thought she was crazy already. 

She focused her attention, leaning closer to it on the desk. _Light,_ she thought, then whispered - “Light up.” 

Nothing happened. 

“God, this is stupid,” she muttered and straightened up. It seemed she was cursed with shattering bulbs at inconvenient times because she was angry, or upset, or panicking - and nothing more useful than that. 

She looked up as the bell rang and Donald stepped in. Quickly she shoved the bulb under the counter. 

“Joyce, hey,” he said. “Uh, just checking in, you feeling better?”

Joyce nodded, smiling in a way she hoped was inauspicious. “Yeah, all better, thanks Donald.”

He nodded back distractedly, scratching the back of his head. “Hey, uh, listen, d’you think you could pull a double shift today? I got a thing in Indianapolis-“

Inwardly she scowled. _Better pay me overtime._ “Uh, sure, that’s fine,” she said instead. He looked relieved, and headed back out.

God, he pissed her off sometimes. She retrieved the lightbulb and stared at it with her anger still hot in her chest, stared at it and thought of hot, bright light-

It lit up, suddenly and fiercely. 

Joyce started. She looked at it disbelievingly, but this was real - there were no cables, no wires connecting it to the grid. This was _her._

She felt wetness dripping from her nose, and she wiped at it with her hand. Her fingers came away bloody. She stared in fascination. She really was like El, now. One of Brenner’s lab rats.

—-

Hopper pinched the bridge of his nose. This guy, Jackson, he seemed a real hypochondriac. He’d decided his dog was crazy, and apparently this was in the police’s jurisdiction.

It was midday, and the sun was burning weakly from behind grey clouds. Another cold day, which alarmed him more than the dog currently chained behind this guy’s house, barking madly. 

“Listen, it’s probably acting like this because you’ve got it chained up and exposed to the elements. Dogs need exercise,” he said, fighting the urge to roll his eyes.

Jackson scowled, crossing his arms. “I’m telling you, he was acting up before I chained him here. If I hadn’t he might have killed me!”

Hopper did roll his eyes then. “Look, call the vet. This is not my job.”

On cue, the dog gave a vicious barking fit, and foam dripped from its jaws. Classic case of rabies, in his opinion.

Jackson looked ready to protest, but then Hopper’s radio crackled to life and he jumped to answer it, eager for an escape.

“Shoot,” he said.

Powell’s voice was crackly and quiet over the radio. “I’ve got the tinhat nutter here, y’know, Bauman, says he won’t see anyone but you. Says it’s urgent.”

Hopper groaned. It seemed he was trading one annoyance for another - but Bauman was clued in now, so maybe he had something useful. “I’ll be there in ten,” he said, and gave an approximation of an apologetic look to Jackson. “I gotta run.”

So, ten minutes later, he was sat across from Murray Bauman, awaiting some crackpot theory about Russians or aliens. It never came. Instead, he looked deadly serious, and believable.

“I found this in the old files I… acquired… from Hawkins Lab. I thought you might wanna see.” He passed Hopper a crumpled piece of paper that he unfolded suspiciously. It was a file, with a photo attached, and his gaze was immediately drawn to it.

It was Joyce.

Fifteen years younger, with close-cropped hair and a hollow, haunted face, but it was definitely her. She was staring at the camera, wide-eyed and scared, wearing a hospital gown that slipped to reveal prominent collarbones. 

Typewritten at the top was a title - ‘Subject: 006’. His stomach turned at this, and he looked at Bauman with trepidation.

“Now how in the hell did Joyce Byers end up as a subject at the Lab?” Bauman said, leaning forward in his chair. “Now this is interesting, because we have to question who else the Lab took - who are the other subjects? Were they willing participants in their campaign of evil?”

Hopper scowled. “Joyce would never willingly help those assholes.”

Bauman sat back, a satisfied expression on his face. “No, she wouldn’t.” He dug in his jacket and produced some photos, which he handed to Hopper. “These are proof of that.”

The photos were of pale, skinny arms covered in purple, bruising track marks, with rough red marks ringing each wrist. He wouldn’t have known whose they were if they weren’t captioned SUBJECT 006. Joyce’s arms. These weren’t the arms of a volunteer - they were the arms of a prisoner.

He winced at the sight, anger thrumming in his veins. Brenner- god, he would kill him. He would fucking _murder_ him, and feel nothing but satisfaction.

He became aware that Bauman was looking at him with that increasingly common knowing expression, and he looked up at him with a scowl. “What?” he snapped.

“Oh, nothing. My congratulations to the happy couple.”

Hopper scoffed. “We’re not together.”

“Interesting.” Bauman’s eyebrows had climbed higher. 

He elected to ignore this. “Look, do you know anything about the Lab’s mental health program in 1970?”

Bauman looked intrigued. “Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact.” He huffed, looking annoyingly pleased with himself. “Not so much of a nutter anymore, am I?”

“Cut the crap, Bauman. We’re pooling resources here, this does not mean you’re on the team.”

The guy visibly drooped. “Ugh, fine. From what I’ve unearthed, it was a cover for another arm of their MK Ultra project. They seem to think people can have some kind of… genetic predisposition, to the supernatural. This program tested it out on the citizens of Hawkins.”

“Wait, so that means Joyce’s family are all… gifted?” Hopper cringed as the word came out of his mouth, like he was in a shitty sci fi movie, but he had to know.

“Whatever they do in that lab, it enhances this… predisposition somehow. I think it has to be under the right conditions for someone to develop these powers.”

Huh, so that was why Joyce had powers and Jonathan didn’t. Will was a bit of an enigma - El had said they could communicate in the dark place, but maybe these ‘conditions’ had been met during his stay in the Upside Down.

He sighed. “Thanks,” he said begrudgingly.

“You’re welcome,” Bauman said. “How about in return, you protect me from these assholes? I know Brenner’s back in town. They’re gunning for me, I’m the reason the Lab shut down.”

Actually, it had mainly been Jonathan and Nancy, but nice try.

“I really don’t think you’re their biggest priority right now,” he said wearily, thinking of Joyce panicking in the woods, the mark of a needle on her neck. El’s frightened sobs.

“I gave you intel! I helped you out! All I ask is a boon in return.”

Hopper pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna lock your door at night, and you’re gonna stop drawing attention to yourself - that means stop with the wacky conspiracy theories, the aliens, the Russians, whatever. Act like you’ve never heard of Brenner or the Lab. Can you do that?”

Bauman gave him a disgruntled look. “Fine, if that’s the best you can do.” He stalked out, nose in the air, and Hopper sat back in his chair wearily. The photos of Joyce were spread out on his desk, and he stared at them with an empty gaze. 

The bruises on her arms, skin stretched waxy over bone. His jaw clenched.

He stood up, grabbed his coat, and headed to Melvald’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im such a whore for ‘’”””””””platonic””””” bedsharing honestly, can you tell?
> 
> as always, your comments mean the world


	9. Dusk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper makes some unreasonable decisions, and dusk draws in for the Byers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE! STRANGER! THINGS! TRAILER! I CANT!!!!! “it is important to me that you feel safe. I want you to feel like this can still be your home.” FML I LOVE THEM
> 
>  
> 
> im working on a season 3 speculative oneshot based on the trailer, expect that in a week or two!!

Joyce looked up as the bell rang, heralding Hopper’s arrival. She smiled almost unwittingly when she saw him, because he was warm and solid and _there._

He held up a brown paper bag. “Lunch?”

She followed him outside, to where she used to sit with Bob (no, she wasn’t doing this now). It was brisk and cold, and she was glad she’d brought her (increasingly tatty) coat with her. It was nearly May, so the recent weather sent unease down her spine - everything bad seemed to happen in the cold. If nothing else, it forced memories she’d been trying to forget to the surface.

Hopper opened the bag and produced two burgers, as if he knew she hadn’t packed herself any lunch. She took one gratefully, suddenly realising she was hungry for once, and took a bite before speaking.

“Uh, thanks, Hop, I can pay you back-“

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. My treat.”

There was something in his eyes that stopped her from protesting further. And, as she predicted, his tone became serious.

“Murray Bauman came to see me this morning,” he said, and produced a crumpled sheet of paper. “He gave me this.”

She took it with trepidation. It was a file, with her name stamped on it - _Joyce Ruth Byers, née Horowitz. Subject 006._ There was a photo, too, of her with short hair, nothing more than skin and bone. Her chest tightened.

Then her gaze caught on something else. _Abilities: photokinesis (strength & extent to which it is unconscious unknown - may be purely photogenous, unlike Subject 008), extrasensory perception._

She traced it with her finger, it feeling false and untrue. Something that couldn’t possibly apply to her, even though just half an hour ago she lit up a lightbulb with her mind. “What does photogenous mean?”

“What? I have no idea. Miss Horowitz, shouldn’t you know? Queen of the high school vocab test,” he quipped with a smirk.

She let out a breathy laugh despite herself. “Shut up,” she muttered.

His face turned serious again, and he moved the paper to stare at it. “Subject 008, don’t suppose you remember them?”

She thought hard. The memories were coming back in flashes, nothing more than brief images that were too vague to make sense of, but one face hovered in her mind. “I think- it was a kid, a little girl. A little older than Jonathan was.”

“Jesus,” Hopper said.

“Look, Hop, what are we doing with all this information? Are you suggesting we find the other subjects?”

“I don’t know, maybe. Then maybe we’d have enough evidence to take Brenner and that whole department down, for real this time.” There was conviction in his voice, and stone-cold anger, and she wondered if there was something he wasn’t telling her. “I’m gonna have to go back to Bauman, see if he has any more of these files.”

There was a moment of silence. Joyce took another bite of her burger. “You get this from Benny’s?”

He nodded, eyes downcast. Another victim of Brenner’s schemes. Benny had always been kind to her, offered her meals on the house (which she refused on principle) when Lonnie was acting his worst. And she knew Hop and he had been close. Benny’s sister had taken over the diner, but it wasn’t the same.

Hopper was clearly thinking the same, because he scowled. “Assholes have got a lot of shit to answer for.”

She took his hand. “We’re gonna get them, Hop. We’re gonna nail these bastards tight.”

He looked at her with stormy eyes full of emotion, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her - and the thought filled her with unexpected warmth. But then he looked away, and pulled his hand from her grasp, and she felt cold.

“I, uh, I gotta go,” he said quickly, and her face fell unwittingly - then she schooled it into a careful, if brittle, smile.

“This was nice,” she said. “Thanks for lunch.”

He nodded, smiled weakly in return, then left her at the bench. She looked away from his retreating form, down at her hands, at the half-finished burger. She bit her lip. This thing - whatever it was - between them was both electric and painful, like the adrenaline of an open wound. She- she thought she was ready, now, ready for something to happen, but everytime she reached out he pulled away. 

She buried her face in her hands. God, what was she thinking? They had too much going on, both of them, for any sort of _romance._ They were long past the days when he could sweep her off her feet and kiss her like they were both teenagers again. (And yet…)

Joyce looked up through her hair, and her gaze found a streetlamp. She focused on it, just to see if she could. Her jaw clenched, a bead of sweat appearing on her forehead. She thought of Hopper walking away. 

Then the lamp flickered to life, a steady beam of light shining from it. She could feel the blood pooling above her lip, but she ignored it, and concentrated on the light - _off,_ she thought, and it went dark. _On -_ and it went bright again, by the silent commands of her mind.

There was something beautiful in it, almost. Despite the horrific way she’d gained these powers, there was an elation in actually using them, in feeling this inner strength that Brenner had paradoxically granted her. _Photokinesis._

Maybe if they found the other numbers, together they’d be strong enough to take on Brenner. To take on anyone.

—

Hopper tensed his shoulders almost painfully as he walked away - anything to stop himself turning round and returning to her side, kissing her in broad daylight like he so desperately wanted to. This was the wrong time, everything about it was wrong-

She’d get hurt somehow, the black hole would get her, and he wasn’t sure he could take losing her. And every time she touched him, laid her hand on his or asked him to sleep beside her, it got worse. Because he was getting used to this, this _closeness._ He found comfort in it. And it had to stop.

He was brought out of his thoughts by a hand on his arm. It was the woman he’d met in the library - Jessica Sharpe. She wasn’t wearing the ridiculous glasses anymore, but an obnoxious leopard-print headscarf was tied around her blonde curls. 

“You two make a cute couple,” she said, glancing back at Joyce. 

“We’re n-“ he began to say, then hesitated. It was clear she was fishing, ready to pounce on him if he said he was single. “Uh, yeah, thanks,” he said instead, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly and hoping she wasn’t a gossip.

As he’d predicted, she looked disappointed. The corners of her red-painted lips drooped. “Still couldn’t tempt you for a drink?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he said.

She patted his arm. “See you around, Chief.” She walked away with hips swinging and he looked away, thinking of the irony - because if he was unwilling to commit to Joyce, in what universe would he have a drink with Jessica?

He looked back. Joyce had left the bench, presumably going back to her shift in Melvald’s crappy store. For a long, painful moment he regretted leaving her there - but then logic took over. He couldn’t lose her too.

—

Darkness. Shadowy tendrils, reaching for him. Cold, everything cold, cold and dark. The monster, the Mind Flayer, malicious and evil-

“Will! Will, are you okay?”

He shook himself out of it to find Max staring at him with concern. He was sat on the steps at the back of the school, where the Party usually hung out. It was 2:45, so he was meant to be in Math, but when the shivers had begun to creep up his spine he’d elected to skip. 

So now he was sat here, his mind flickering between blue darkness and the real world. Max was standing a foot away, her gaze intense. He knew this wasn’t like before - it wasn’t those now-memories that had plagued him in November - but that didn’t stop it from being scary, or frightening.

“Will- can you hear me?”

He nodded. “Yeah- yeah, I’m fine.”

Max gave him a tentative smile. “Skipping Math, huh? I’m skipping Science.”

“Science isn’t that bad,” he said in response. “But Math is the worst.”

She grinned and sat down beside him, her presence feeling almost like solidarity. “This- this isn’t another episode, is it?”

“I- sometimes I get these memories, you know? But it’s not an episode. I’m fine.”

Max nodded. “I- uh, I get memories too.”

They smiled at each other, and sat together in silence for a moment. He stared across the pitch, watching a white van crawl up the road beside the school. “Do you- do you ever feel like you wanna just disappear?”

She looked over at him. “I guess. I want my stepdad and Billy to forget about me sometimes. Like, forget I exist.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I get that. Like with my dad - if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have come back, and he wouldn’t have hurt my mom. And her and Jonathan- they worry about me so much, and it’s screwing up their own lives, I know that.”

Max moved to cover his hand with her own. She wore a tight smile, and he was glad it was her who’d come to join him. Lucas wouldn’t understand, neither would Dustin, and Mike-

“Freaks together, huh?” she said, interrupting his thoughts. 

He smiled back. “Freaks together.”

When the bell rang for the end of last period, he and Max walked to the front of the school together, where his mom was meant to pick him up. He’d been cycling more often, but lately Joyce had become overprotective again, insisting on driving him everywhere.

Lucas ran up to them, his arms full of books.

“Hey, Will, where were you? Mr Sheridan gave us a ton of homework.”

He handed Will a pile of worksheets, which he took with a noncommittal shrug, suddenly shy. “I, uh, I wasn’t feeling well.”

The concern in his friend’s eyes was all too familiar, but he ignored it and scanned the parking lot for his mom’s Pinto. He couldn’t find it, which was unusual - she always made sure to be there waiting for him. (As much as he chafed at the attention, he felt anxious whenever it wavered.)

“Hey, uh, I’ll see you tomorrow?” Max said, pulling him into an unexpected hug. She gave Lucas an awkward smile then hurried off, skateboard under her arm. 

Lucas watched her go, but Will was still looking at the cars lining up at the gate. “Hey, Will, Dustin and I were thinking we could have a Party meeting tomorrow. Discuss-“ he lowered his voice “-the Brenner situation.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” he replied absently, even as Brenner’s name sent a thrill of fear down his spine. “You don’t see my mom anywhere, do you?”

Lucas frowned. “Is she picking you up again?”

He nodded. “She’s never usually late.”

“She probably just got held up at work or something.”

Will frowned. That was possible, but he knew his mom. She worried about him so much, too much, that she would never leave him waiting like this. Something was wrong.

The parking lot was beginning to empty and the flood of kids talking subsided as they left. Lucas was beginning to fidget beside him, but he was a good friend - he wouldn’t leave him waiting alone. 

What was he going to do? What if no one came, and he was stuck here in the school parking lot in thickening twilight, alone? What if Brenner had taken his mom again, what if that was why she wasn’t here? His breathing hitched and he told himself to stay calm, because this was the last thing he needed. Not in front of Lucas, who was one of many to treat him like he was about to break.

Then suddenly a car drove up next to them - Jonathan’s car. He leaned out the window, face apologetic. “Hey, Will, sorry I’m late, I got held up.”

“Where’s Mom?” Will asked, saying a quick goodbye to Lucas who grinned at him. 

“See, nothing to worry about,” he said as he walked away.

Will slid into the front seat and turned to look at his brother. He looked frazzled, and weary, but he gave him a comforting smile as they drove off.

“She had to pick up another shift at the store. She asked me to come get you.”

“What were you doing?” He knew his brother had a free period on Friday afternoons, so he couldn’t have been held up at school.

Jonathan looked uncomfortable. He flexed his hand on the steering wheel, and ran the other through his hair. “I, uh, I was with Nancy and Steve.” 

Will frowned. That wasn’t that unusual (though he didn’t really get why his brother was friends with his girlfriend’s ex). He remained silent, which prompted Jonathan to continue.

“We- uh, we’re planning something. To get rid of Brenner. But you _cannot_ tell Mom, okay? Or the Chief, or even El.”

His eyes widened. “But Hopper said-“

“I know, okay? I know what he said. But I can’t stand this- not _doing_ anything. Not after what happened to Mom.”

Will exhaled slowly. “Is it gonna work? What you’re planning, is it gonna work?”

Jonathan moved his eyes from the road to meet Will’s gaze. “Yeah, I think so. It has to.”

Golden Earring was playing on the radio, and they drove without speaking for a while. Will stared out the window at the trees flying past, and hoped that Jonathan knew what he was doing.

When they arrived at the house, Will sat down at the kitchen table with his homework.

“Mom said she’d be home about six,” Jonathan said, “so she’s gonna do dinner.”

He nodded distractedly in response, staring at the mountain of math worksheets in front of him. Lucas hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he’d missed a lot. 

As he worked through them, he found himself glancing at the clock on the wall, its incessant ticking pounding a rhythm into his skull. 4:15, 4:35, 5:00. At 5:15 he climbed up on the counter and took out a cookie from where his mom had hidden them, before turning and staring at the clock while he ate it. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen, but he had no idea why. 

At 5:55 he realised he’d stopped working, and was doodling instead. His pen had formed mindless scribbles that, when he really stared at it, began to look like tentacles, shadowy tendrils, the Mind Flayer-

Will dropped his pen and sat back, breathing out shakily. God, maybe he was going crazy. Why couldn’t he just calm down? His shoulders were tense and he made them relax. 

He only had one more sheet to do. So he forced himself to continue, running the calculations in his head absently. God, he hated Math.

6:00 came and went, with no sign of his mom. He tried to ignore the nagging anxiety at the back of his mind - she’d probably just gotten held up by a customer, or her boss. 

6:15, then 6:30. 

At 6:34, Jonathan came out of his room. “Uh, is Mom- is Mom not home yet?” he asked, though they both already knew the answer. He paled. He went to the phone and dialled, holding it by his ear impatiently.

After a few moments, he put it back on the hook. “No answer at the store,” he said, looking queasy. “Listen, uh, I’m sure she’s just on her way right now.”

They waited in tense silence as the minutes ticked by - 6:45, 6:55, 7:10. It was beginning to get dark outside, Will could see through the window - a rosy dusk was drawing in, completely at odds with the sick panic in his chest. A beautiful evening.

And still his mom didn’t come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Golden Earring is a dutch band who had hits in the US in the 70s and 80s - definitely the kind of sound Jonathan would be into. Their song _Twilight Zone_ was one of my inspirationa for this fic.


	10. Joyce Vanishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions rise between Jonathan and Hopper as they look for Joyce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is a bit late - i’ve been ridiculously busy and im also quite hungover right now lol so apologies for any typos i missed in the edit

Hopper took a long, shaky drag of his cigarette, blowing out smoke in a mournful cloud. Only that morning - _only that morning_ \- he’d been smoking in bed with Joyce, in the sunlight. Now he was sitting in his kitchen with her kids, without her. 

He’d gone to the store as soon as Jonathan had called, had searched for any sign, any struggle. There was none. The store was the same as always - at least so far as he could tell from the outside, as it was locked and dark. He knew better than to make assumptions. They could have taken her outside the store, on her way home, or they could have taken her inside it and made an effort with clean up. (Joyce would never have gone quietly, not without a struggle.)

Then he’d gone to their house. When Jonathan saw that he was alone, he wore the same expression he had when Hopper had turned up with Will’s bike that cold morning almost two years ago, and the deja-vu came with a sick jolt of panic. God, Joyce was missing - and they didn’t know whether they’d give her back this time.

(Because snatching her from the store, in broad daylight - that was in a whole different ballpark to taking her quietly in the night.)

He’d told the boys to pack some things, because there was no way in hell they were staying in that house overnight alone, and brought them to the cabin (still with the twenty minute detour, because now it was even more important Brenner didn’t get to El).

When he opened the door, El must have seen it in their faces, because her expression crumpled. She ran to hug first Will, then Hopper, pressing her head against his chest.

“It’s Joyce, isn’t it?” she said softly, voice muffled.

Hopper felt a lump rising in his throat and fought to swallow it, because he had to stay strong. For Joyce. “Uh, yeah, she- she’s missing.”

And now they were sat in his tiny kitchen, Jonathan pacing up and down. Suddenly he stopped decisively and grabbed his jacket. “I’m going out looking.”

“Like hell you are!” Hopper snapped without looking up. “It’s dark outside, and cold, and if anything happened to you your mom-“

“Yeah, well, Mom’s not here, is she? I- we can’t just do nothing!”

“You and I both know you’re not gonna find her in the woods. I will handle this! I’m gonna call Owens-“

“Owens!” Jonathan scoffed. “And what- what the hell is Owens gonna do? He’s probably in fucking Washington or somewhere-“

“Hey! Language!”

The kid threw up his hands. “I need some air,” he said, and stalked out the door. 

Hopper put his head in his hands. Then he felt fingers tugging on his sleeve, and he looked up to meet El’s solemn gaze. “I can find her,” she said, face full of emotion.

“Kid-“ He hurried to reduce the volume of his voice - he’d learnt that yelling at her didn’t solve anything. “I- I can’t lose you too. And after last time- who’s to say Brenner can’t locate you?”

Will interjected. “What if we had somewhere safe to go? Somewhere we could hide?”

“What are you thinking, kid?” he asked, but he knew he couldn’t risk it unless he had no other options (though with Joyce gone and the clock since her disappearance continually ticking, he was fast running out of them). 

“The tunnels. They’re still here, right? Only they’re safe now, because El closed the gate.”

“No way, that’s far too dangerous-“

“As a last resort,” Will said, and he and El looked up at him with matching pleading expressions. 

He sighed, and stood up. “I’m gonna go to the station, call Owens, see what I can dig up. You’re not gonna do _anything_ without my permission, is that understood? Sit tight and _wait._ And that goes for Jonathan too.”

He stepped back outside into the cold, where there was no sign of Joyce’s eldest. Jonathan and Will had followed in his car, so if he wanted he could have driven off alone. “Shit,” Hopper whispered softly. How had this happened? Only a few weeks ago they’d been on their way to a normal family - and now-

Joyce- Joyce was _fucking missing._ Who knew what Brenner was doing to her, how they were treating her, who knew if they’d even keep her alive-

Hell fucking no. He was not going down that train of thought, not on his life. He had to be practical, and logical, and leave that sick fear in his gut out of it. 

(This was his worst fears coming true, all at once, because only that lunchtime he’d pushed Joyce away so she wouldn’t get hurt, so the black hole wouldn’t get her-

It seemed she had a black hole of her own.)

Misgivings settled cold in his chest when he reached the trailer to find Jonathan’s car gone. He couldn’t deal with that kid running solo, not now, but he had to get to the station - he had to do something. Jonathan could protect himself (he hoped).

When he arrived at the station he went straight for the phone and dialled from memory, hoping against hope Owens picked up, as it was nearly 10pm. 

He was lucky. Owens answered with a “Yep?”

“Owens, it’s Hopper. I need everything you have on Brenner - where he’s set up base, what he’s doing.”

“What? Why now? Can’t this wait til morning?”

“Owens, they took Joyce Byers. They-“ His voice trembled and he forced it steady. “I need to know where they took her.”

“Jesus. Look, I haven’t got the clearance levels- Brenner has Reagan’s ear, he’s as senior as you can get now. The security on his shit- it’s massive.”

“Fuck!” Hopper swore, his hands beginning to shake. 

“Hey, you need to stay calm,” Owens said quickly. There was the sound of rustling paper. “Listen, I’m in the office. I can call in a favor with a guy in Communications, but I’m gonna have to call you back in about twenty minutes. That okay?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s great, thanks,” Hopper said, and hung up. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Fuck!” he yelled again, and lit a cigarette.

—

Jonathan drove through the darkness, not knowing where he was going, only that he needed to go _somewhere._ Why couldn’t Hopper see that this was his _Mom,_ his responsibility? He was an adult now. He had to do something, he couldn’t just sit there and wait for the Chief to sort it.

He clenched his fist on the steering wheel. The thought of his Mom, out there in Brenner’s clutches - it made him sick with fear. First Will, now Mom - would his family ever get a break? Why were they the focal points of all the troubles involving the Lab?

He sighed, and noticed absently he was driving on autopilot up north to Nancy’s house. It was probably unwise to visit her, especially as it was so late and her parents imposed a curfew - but he needed someone to talk to, someone who wouldn’t tell him to sit and wait.

Jonathan parked up the road and walked down to her house, hands stuffed in his pockets against the cold. Then he deftly made the climb up to her window and knocked on the glass.

She was sitting on her bed, flicking through some papers. She looked up at the sound, her brown curls falling around her face, and smiled when she saw him.

“Hey,” she said quietly as she opened the window for him. “We gotta be quiet, my parents are asleep. Early night.”

He slipped into her room, and her easy smile faded at his serious, scared expression. “It’s Mom- she’s missing.”

Nancy’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my god,” she said. “Are you okay? Is it Brenner?”

Jonathan nodded silently, not trusting himself to speak. She drew him over to the bed, where she sat beside him and held his hand. 

“I, uh, it seems pretty trivial now, but when I went to the library, I found this,” she said, and handed him a sheet of paper. It was a newspaper clipping from 1978, detailing an old power station being upgraded. 

He looked at it blankly. “What’s so special about this?”

Nancy pointed at the photo, of several officials standing in front of the looming building. “Recognise her? That’s Connie Frazier.”

He peered closer, and sure enough she was the woman on the edge of the frame. The agent who likely killed Benny, as well as hunting Eleven across Hawkins, lying her way into innocent people’s homes. “So? It could just be coincidence.”

Nancy pointed next at the caption. “ _Officials from the US Department of Energy were present at the start of this promising new project._ This station - it’s only a couple miles away. Under our noses the whole time.”

Suddenly, it dawned on him. “You think this is where Brenner’s set up base.”

She nodded. “It’s the perfect replacement - further away than the Lab from prying eyes, but they can continue their fucked up experiments. Business as usual.”

Jonathan clenched his fist. “So nothing we did mattered.”

“Hey,” she said softly. “We got justice for Barb. And El’s life would never have been even slightly normal if the Lab was still running.”

He sighed. He knew she was right, but everything was hitting him progressively harder, making it difficult to breathe. “Wait- you don’t think that’s where they took my Mom, do you?”

Nancy was wide-eyed. “It’s possible. I mean, it would make sense.”

“Shit, I have to- I have to give this to Hopper.” He stood up.

Their plans, such as they were, had to be put on hold. He’d been putting on a show of bravado for Will, really, because whatever plans they had were half-formed - break into one of the surveillance vans, try and get more evidence. Pray whatever blind luck they’d had last time worked again. But his Mom- she was his only priority. 

She nodded. “I’m coming with you.”

“You don’t have to-“

“You shouldn’t be alone,” she said softly, standing up too and pressing close to him. “And I want to help.”

So they both climbed out of her window and dropped down to her lawn. Nancy was hugging herself, shivering. “It’s so cold,” she whispered.

He nodded absently, mind on other things. “Yeah, it’s weird.”

They reached his car, and they drove off into the darkness.

—

Hopper started when the phone rang. The shrill, urgent sound cut through the silence and he jumped to answer it, stubbing out his fifth cigarette fast before picking it up.

“Chief, I got something. I don’t know where Brenner is, but I know he’s got a military presence. That means you can’t go storming in there guns blazing. And I found a record of a phone call two days ago, does the name Lonnie Byers mean anything to you?”

“Joyce’s ex. What the fuck did he do now?”

“Well, there’s a transcript here, and it looks like he told them about Jane. That she’s with you.”

Mingled hatred and panic coursed through him. That fucking _bastard,_ that piece of shit- God, he was gonna kill him. Then a sick thought occurred to him, one that made his hands shake. “Where- where did he call from?”

“Um-“ There was the sound of rustling paper. “Jesus, it looks like he called from your number.”

“Fuck,” Hopper said quietly, his stomach dropped like a stone. He’d granted the guy a phone call when he’d booked him in the other day - he’d expected him to call his lawyer, not Brenner in some sick idea of revenge. _Fuck._

Owens began to speak again. “I think they’re calling in their assets. If they’ve taken Joyce, it might be a hostage situation.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you any more help, Brenner’s got government backing now. Good luck with it.”

Hopper exhaled shakily. “Thanks, thanks for everything.”

Then he hung up and stalked straight to the cell where Lonnie was lying on his thin mattress. (He’d released the asshole after one night in lock-up, warning him to stay away from Joyce, only to hear he’d been in a bar fight that morning.) He opened the door and, without speaking, dragged him to his feet and slammed him against the wall. “What the fuck did you tell Brenner?”

“About what?” he slurred, clearly still drunk. 

“You know what!” Hopper shouted. “My daughter!”

“Huh, I thought she was dead.”

Hopper hit him, hard. “What did they offer you, huh? Money? Hurting your own family wasn’t enough, was it? You had to hurt mine?”

Lonnie slowly pulled himself upright, wiping at the blood on his face pathetically. “They asked me if I’d seen anything weird in Hawkins lately, y’know, they asked me about this kid. I just told ‘em you had a weird daughter now, it’s common knowledge.”

It wasn’t common knowledge. The Wheelers knew, though, and Lonnie and Ted were friends-

Fuck. Hopper had fucked up, royally. 

“What the fuck else did you tell them? Did you tell them where I lived?”

He loomed over Lonnie, and the smaller man looked vaguely intimidated. “I- uh, gave them the address of your trailer.”

“Fuck!” Hopper yelled, and stormed out of the cell. It would only take them a moment to discover he no longer slept there, and the cabin was in his family name-

He rushed to the phone and dialled without hesitation. “Hey, it’s me. Listen, you need to get the hell out of there, find somewhere to hide. Take your radio with you.”

El’s voice was shaky on the other end. “Dad? You’ll find us?”

“I’ll be there soon, radio me if you’re in trouble,” he said. “You gotta be fast, you hear me? Hell, go down into the tunnels if you have to. Just stay safe.”

He hung up just as Jonathan and Nancy burst into his office. He looked up, about to reprimand the kid - why the hell had he wandered off? 

But Jonathan spoke first. “We think we know where they took Mom.”

That shut him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really enjoy the dynamic hop & jonathan have in the show, with jonathan’s lack of faith in any sort of father figures and hop’s overbearing parenting style, and i’d like to see more of it please @ duffers make it happen


	11. 006

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce faces Brenner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry. I promise things will get better for Joyce soon.

Dark.

Everything was dark, and empty. 

When Joyce woke, at first she thought she’d gone blind. A field of black was all she could see, for miles and miles - yet when she stretched out her arms, they found walls uncomfortably close. A closet, then, some kind of storage cupboard, with a solid hard floor and no lights. 

She folded her arms against the cold, shivering. Her jacket and uniform smock were gone, leaving her in her jeans and flimsy shirt that did nothing against the chill of the air. The closet smelled stale, so it couldn’t be outside - but the floor was icy cold. 

She stood up, relieved to find she could. She was stiff, her limbs aching, from lying unconscious on the floor for who knew how long - God, what had she gotten herself into? What did they want with her this time? 

She remembered hearing the ding of the bell just as she was locking up, and looking up into eyes that were distinctly unfriendly - and not even needing to see the syringe in his fist before she knew she had to run.

She darted to the end of the store, hoping for an escape round the back, but it took one look for her to establish they were waiting there too. 

She’d barricaded herself in the dingy staff toilet, hands shaking as footsteps came nearer. There was no escape, she knew this - but she had to hold them off a while.

Then they had broken down the door, and everything had gone black. Like some kind of cliché.

Joyce pounded a fist on the wall. “Hey!” she screamed. “Let me out of here!” 

No response, nothing. No door magically opened, no one came to help her. She lost count of how many times she called out, squinting blindly into the darkness. After a while her voice went hoarse and she fell silent, slumping to the floor. She leaned her head back against the wall.

“God,” she whispered, not out of faith - she’d stopped believing a very long time ago - but as some sort of desperate curse. Fucking Brenner.

She stared into the dark unseeing. Unbidden, the deprivation of sight was bringing back memories - memories so visceral she could see them playing out in the black. Her sitting on the end of a bed in a hospital gown, her neck feeling bare and cold from her fresh haircut. (The violation of it, the droning buzz of the electric razor before they placed electrodes on her scalp.) Her fingers trembling for a smoke, the condescending smile of the nurse who gave one to her. An IV feeding her something that was definitely not saline. The other subjects, lined up beside her - faces she recognised and faces she didn’t, all with short hair and gaunt faces and hospital gowns. 

Lonnie, guiding her into the car while she was frozen, dazed, the memories already trickling out of her head. The bruising marks on her arms fading, the only proof she had. The realisation that she’d be considered crazy if she told anyone. That maybe she _was_ crazy. 

The high, angular face of Two looking down at her, eyes that were brittle and cold. Probing into her mind with agonising sharpness, finding and rooting out her every little thought. Jonathan and Will, laughing (even though Will was no more than an inkling at that point) - all exposed and inspected by the woman, inspected and cast aside uncaringly. 

That same woman falling and bleeding, seizing on the floor. Dying before her eyes. Brenner’s people crowding round, white coats stained with red. “Another one. We gotta figure out what’s killing them.”

Brenner shushing them, sending his falsely reassuring smile to Joyce. Saying, “Let’s not disturb the subjects.”

Twisted, LSD provoked nightmares. Floating suspended in oblivion, what they called sensory deprivation. Expanding the boundaries of the mind - as the other subjects died around her. Blood and sterile white. A disturbing combination.

Joyce dragged herself out of her spiralling memories with a gasp, closing her eyes as if that was any better than the all-consuming darkness. God, she couldn’t let it get to her like this. No doubt that was their intention - lock her up until she cracked. Told them where Eleven was.

(She’d die before she did that - and that wasn’t much of an exaggeration.)

She hardened her stare, directed at nothing. If ever there was a time for her ‘powers’, such as they were, to show up, it was now. Now, when she sat in blind, panicky darkness.

She thought of golden light spilling over her. Illuminating what was no doubt a small and sterile space, warming the frigid floor. Returning strength to her weary bones. 

There was a flicker of light, almost blinding when compared to the darkness. She concentrated on it, made it grow until it was a soft but helpful glow. It hovered in mid-air, anchored only to her silent commands- she felt woozy all of a sudden. This was a different kind of power, she realised. One that physically demanded more from her, demanded blood. (It dripped in a steady stream from both nostrils, and she ignored it steadfastly.) 

Joyce looked around her then. The closet was no more than she’d expected. Tiny, cramped, bare, with a tiled floor that radiated ice. There was a door in one wall, the handle locked when she tried it - but at least they hadn’t blinded her. At least she had the agency these powers had granted her - and wasn’t that ironic.

She stared at the ceiling, following the ridges in the foamboard with her eyes. She had to stay focused, stay sane - she’d heard what happened to people kept in solitary, that they eventually went mad. And she was closer to that brink than she liked anyway, without this whole situation.

_Breathe._ She had to get through this - they had to come for her soon - then she’d find a way to escape, to make it back to her boys. To El. To Hopper.

(If nothing else, he had to answer for his abrupt behaviour that lunchtime - though was it that lunchtime? All concept of time was suspended, it seemed.)

She passed a hand over her face, stared at the light, then started as the door opened. It was Brenner, in the flesh. Standing there, tall and proud and malicious. He looked unchanged, save the faint pale pattern of a scar sloping down his forehead, barely noticeable unless you were looking for it. He was officious and commanding in a suit, lips pressed in a thin line.

“Well done, Six. You’ve accomplished more than we could have hoped.”

She grimaced. Two other men hauled her to her feet and she shook their hands off, glaring at him. “What the hell do you want from me?” 

Brenner made a gesture, and one of the men produced a syringe. “What- what the fuck is that?” she demanded shakily, flinching away. They grabbed her again, tighter, pinning her between them and holding her still as they forced the needle into her veins. 

Everything went hazy alarmingly quickly, and the last thing she saw before it all went dark was Brenner’s expressionless face leaning close. “All we want is our property returned,” he said, and her eyes rolled back.

—

Joyce was forced awake with the stab of another needle in her arm and the rush of another drug in her veins, coursing through her body and constricting her chest. Her heart was racing impossibly fast, her vision blurring and the world spinning around her in a drunken haze. Brenner seemed to be staring at her from a great distance, like she was at the bottom of a well, falling down-

Each laboured breath seemed impossibly loud in her ears, each pounding heartbeat seemed thunderous enough to shatter her fragile-feeling ribcage. She arched out of her chair, riding a wave of agonising adrenaline, seeking an escape but finding none.

“Six, can you hear me?” Brenner, through a blurred technicolor haze, grasped her shoulders and she shuddered under his touch. Reeling, she regarded him balefully, sweat dripping down her forehead and stinging her eyes. 

“Joyce, I want to you listen to me. _Where is Eleven?_ ”

She looked at his feet. Nothing felt real and he seemed to be looking at her from far, far away. She couldn’t stop shaking. The agony of panic and dizziness was only beginning to fade, and the race of her heart was all she could think of, all she could hear. 

“Let me explain to you what has happened. In the 1960s we developed a new, highly effective interrogation technique - a barbiturate in one arm, an amphetamine in the other. A rollercoaster of sorts.” He crouched down before her and his face loomed in her vision. Blurred as it was, there was a sharpness to it - exhaustion and adrenaline, barbiturate and amphetamine.

He stared at her for a moment, his eyes searching and cold, before standing so he towered over her. “I have done this to you for two reasons. The first being your powers. We still struggle to understand them, Six. How unconscious they are. How strong they are. This will help us understand.”

Gradually her gaze pulled into focus the lightbulbs on the table, a treacherous mockery of the setup the kids had produced only a few days previous. _Powers._ The word felt foreign, wrong in her mind, something assigned to El and El alone. 

“And the second is the whereabouts of Eleven. Where is she, Joyce? We only want to help.”

She took a long, careful breath - inhale, exhale. Her hands were shaking behind her back, the cuffs digging into her skin. 

“You want to help? Help who? Yourself?” Her voice was tremulous and weak but she forced herself to continue. “Go fuck yourself.”

Brenner gave her a thin-lipped smile. “I’d hoped to avoid this, but you give me no choice.” He reached for another syringe and she flinched involuntarily. “Unless you’re ready to help me, to help yourself?”

Joyce clenched her jaw mutinously, her every nerve still reeling from the drugs. 

Brenner looked at her. “Then we’ll continue.”

As the barbiturate forced its way into her veins, she thought of El. Thought of her enduring this and worse at this awful man’s hands, thought of her happy freedom that they’d all do anything to preserve.

Then she slid into brief, beautiful unconsciousness. 

—-

There were trucks passing overhead. The trundle of the wheels, lasting long enough to let them know there was a lot of them, was thunderous, despite the many feet of soil that lay between them and the road. Will huddled into himself, the blue of the tunnels feeling all too familiar.

“You okay?” El asked earnestly, pressing the warmth of her body against his. 

He nodded mutely. The tunnels were just as he remembered them - dark, and long, and cold - but there wasn’t that eerie sense of malice anymore. They just felt empty. Empty and dead. He shivered, gripping the flashlight tighter. He hated this.

They’d found a hole leading down here only a few hundred yards from the cabin, a hole that El had widened with her mind then covered up with twigs and leaves, fear in her every movement. He clutched her hand tight and they shared shaky smiles.

“Joyce is strong,” El said haltingly - as if trying to convince herself as much as Will. He knew she cared about his mom almost as much as he did, that she was her daughter in all but blood - that they were essentially brother and sister. El was, except for Jonathan, the only person who could possibly understand his terror right now.

“Do you think-“ He hesitated. “Do you think I could do what you do? I mean, could I find her? In the dark place?”

El’s eyes were wide in the blue gloom. “Maybe,” she said. “Try?”

Will closed his eyes, and everything was swallowed by the dark. He stepped forward in it cautiously, the not-water rippling soundlessly under his feet. He thought of Mom, thought of her anxious face, her loving eyes- 

She appeared in the void before him.

She was sitting on a metal chair, hands shackled behind her, head bowed with her wild hair obscuring her face. He approached her cautiously, crouching before her. “Mom?” he said softly, but apparently she couldn’t hear him.

Then she jerked up from some invisible force, a desperate scream escaping her lips. Her hair fell away from her face, revealing her sweat-stained and agonised expression, and Will let out a gasp. Her breathing was ragged and horrible, each breath sounding like it was being dragged out of her heaving chest. 

“I told you, I’m not doing _anything_ for you,” she whispered thickly, glaring at some figure beyond Will’s reach. 

The person must have responded, because her expression contorted into one of hatred.

“Go fuck yourself,” she said, with the familiarity of something she’d said many times over. 

Then she flinched, and her whole body went slack, her head slumping in unconsciousness. Will gritted his teeth, his eyes watering at the sight - because his mom was being _tortured_ , and there was nothing he could do.

He brought himself out of the void. El was looking at him with concern, and fear, and he squeezed her hand, wiping the blood at his lip with his left. “They- they’re hurting her.”

She pulled him into a hug. “We will stop them,” she said into his shirt. “Dad will come and we will make a plan.”

They’d radioed Hopper, told him where they were. Will couldn’t tell how long it had been, because time down there felt weird and wrong - like that malicious presence lingered, disrupting normal life. Either that or he was losing it - and that didn’t seem unlikely, not right now.

Now all they could do was wait, wait in fraught, terrible silence under the hole to the surface that seemed as tender as an open wound. The two kids clung to each other, and hoped that the men with searchlights sweeping above wouldn’t discover their presence.

Then there was a probing, thumping sound, and the leaves El had used to hide the hole came fluttering down. Will tensed. Then Hopper appeared, followed by Jonathan and Nancy.

“Hey, it’s just us,” Jonathan said, pulling him into a hug. Will relaxed into it, but the fear still pounded in his throat. The image of his mom screaming.

“They- they’re torturing Mom,” he whispered, and the reaction from both his brother and Hopper was visceral and immediate.

“They’re _what_?” Jonathan repeated, at the same time Hopper said, “How do you know?”

Will shook his head. “I saw her,” he said brokenly.

“Kid, I think we know where she is,” Hopper said, and El looked up.

“We can save her?”

“No, I can save her. You are staying here, where it’s safe.”

El scowled. “I’m stronger than you!” she stated, the pitch of her voice rising.

“That’s why you have to stay!” Hopper yelled.

Nancy stepped between them. “El can’t stay down here forever,” she said, reasonably. “They already know she’s alive.”

“I can’t bring her straight to them!” the chief shouted, his eyes betraying his fear. “I can’t lose you.” His eyes were soft as he addressed this to El, and Will looked away. His own father was an asshole, an abuser who’d never cared about him - but he couldn’t feel jealous, because El had been through so much. All these feelings - he had a whole new family, and navigating it was confusing. 

“It’s my choice,” El said, quietly but firmly. “I want to- I _have to_ help Joyce. Mom.”

That single word, one syllable that carried so much meaning, seemed to send Hopper over the edge. He put his head in his hands. “Okay,” he said finally. “But you do exactly as I say, yeah? If I tell you to run, you run.”

She nodded gravely. 

“Let’s move out, then,” he said and clambered back out the ragged divide between dimensions. They all followed, emerging into the dark of the woods together. There was hostility in the air, the shouts of men searching carried on the wind-

Then they whipped around, as a group of four emerged from the underbrush. “Well, well. Subject Eleven in the flesh.”

Will felt her cringe beside him, her shoulders tensing - and before they could say anything further, all four men were on the ground, their necks twisted at impossible angles. She tottered on her feet, blood leaking from her nose, and he reached out to steady her.

One of the men’s radios crackled to life. “Group E, check in.”

Silence.

“Group E, check in,” the man on the other end repeated. 

Hopper passed a hand over his face. “Looks like we lost the element of surprise, huh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have tried my best to do some research on the torture technique i describe here. it was indeed used by the cia in the 60s and beyond - but its effects were, as far as i can tell, not so violent as i have shown them. however, i took my inspiration for this scene from person of interest s3ep12 ‘aletheia’ and with all the government conspiracy ideas in this show i felt it was relevant.
> 
> — i hope you enjoyed this!! i love you all xxxx


	12. The Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rescue mission begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i think it’s probably time to tell you all this fic is gonna be much longer than 14 chapters lmao probably more like 30, so i’m gonna change the chapter count lol. (i originally planned on splitting it into two parts but i think it works better as a whole.)

El clenched her hands in her lap, staring out the window at the darkened fields racing past. The car was silent, save for Nancy’s occasional murmured direction to Hopper as she sat in the front seat, map spread out before her. They’d dropped Will at Dustin’s - his being the nearest house to their route - and now it was just the four of them, her and Hopper and Jonathan and Nancy. (They’d tried to rope in Steve, but were silenced by a glare from Hopper.

“We have to keep a low profile,” he’d said. “This is a rescue, nothing more than that, okay?”

Nancy’s jaw had clenched mutinously, an expression El found herself copying increasingly often, but Jonathan had nodded.)

The landscape outside was beginning to change, trees going from moonlit and sparse to dense and dark, like something closing in on them. She shivered.

“Hey,” Jonathan whispered across the backseat. “You okay?”

She glanced across at him and nodded silently. He intimidated her a little, because he was tall and solemn and silent, but Will had told her what a good brother he was, how fiercely protective. Jonathan had never really reached out to her before, and Will said this was because he was uncertain of her, afraid she’d hurt their close knit family. (She thought this could explain his coldness to Hopper, sometimes.) But now he was there, eyes concerned. Maybe he’d finally seen how she would never, ever do anything to hurt any of them - that they were all the family she had.

Then they stopped moving. El looked out to see nothing but woods, lit in strange shadows by the headlights. 

“Are we here?” Jonathan asked.

“We’ll walk the rest,” Hopper said as he stepped outside, then they all followed him into the trees without even a flashlight. He, Nancy and Jonathan were all carrying handguns that he had told them under no uncertain terms not to use unless “absolutely necessary”, because they lacked something called a silencer. El had nothing but herself, but she knew that on her own she was more powerful than all three of their guns. 

Then suddenly the building was looming out of the trees, glaring with bright light beyond a chain-link fence. El frowned, because she couldn’t see any guards - which was strange, because at the Lab there had always been armed men patrolling. 

Hopper moved to cut a hole in the fence with the cutters he’d brought, but Jonathan grabbed his arm. “Hey, you have a plan, right?”

“We don’t have time for this-“

“Oh great. Great. You don’t even have a fucking plan-“

“We have the schematics Nancy found, they’re unlikely to have changed it that much since its power station days-“

“Unlikely to? We’re all gonna get killed-“

“Stop!” El hissed, and the two men turned to stare at her. “We have to hurry.”

“She’s right,” said Nancy. “It looks like there aren’t any guards around right now - we have to go now.”

Jonathan moved closer to El, his gaze intense. “Can you find Mom - in there?”

“No- she’s not doing that-“ Hopper protested, but she ignored him, meeting Jonathan’s eyes fiercely.

“Yes,” she said, and closed her eyes. 

—-

Joyce dragged her gaze up to meet Brenner’s, chest heaving. The table was loaded with used syringes, and she was feeling the cumulative effects - her heart was pounding so hard she feared it might burst, each breath feeling an effort. Her sight flickered between darkness and a technicolor haze painfully bright, and she could barely see Brenner as he leaned towards her.

The light bulbs had remained stubbornly dark, though. She was proud of that. She wouldn’t bend to their wishes.

Brenner was still coldly composed, but she could sense a flicker of anger behind those dead eyes. “Why won’t you make this easy on yourself?”

She had resolved to sit in stony, woozy silence, so she was surprised when words tripped from her tongue without permission. “Why won’t you _fuck off?”_

“You know, I shouldn’t be surprised you’re resistant. You were the strongest of all our subjects. The only survivor before Ten.”

Joyce shuddered. The only survivor - that sent ice through her bones. She remembered Two dying in blood, the men saying “We gotta figure out what’s killing them.” She and El - lone veterans of the lab (unless they could find this Ten, and any beyond them). 

“Your powers were never the most impressive, though. We found the gene in you, and spent three weeks enhancing it - then observed you from afar. The first time it presented outside of the Lab was November of 1983.”

When Will disappeared. The christmas lights flickering, communicating between dimensions. She’d always assumed it had been Will, the pervasiveness of the Upside Down lending him supernatural abilities, but in hindsight-

“Most of the other subjects were dead by then, of course. Their powers manifested in extreme magnitude, which ultimately killed them. You are much less gifted - merely annoyingly tenacious.”

Joyce glared, even as her every fibre cried out for help. She wasn’t sure how long she could last, not when Brenner’s supply of needles seemed endless and the pain worsened with every one. 

“Eleven is my most promising subject. That’s why I need her returned, safely - so her power doesn’t destroy her.”

She scoffed. “Nice try, you fucking monster. She’s better off far, far away from you-“

In a flash, he stabbed her in the arm with another syringe full of barbiturate. It felt like only a second of darkness passed before she was jerked awake again, her every muscle spasming and rejecting the drugs. She bucked forward in the chair unwillingly, straining for breath, a hoarse scream torn from her throat.

“I’m losing patience, Six,” Brenner said coolly, crouching before her. 

Joyce was set to give a vicious, if exhausted, retort, when there was movement in the corner of her eye and she whipped round - and suddenly she was in the empty black.

“Joyce,” El whispered, emerging in a cloud of smoke. “We’re coming.”

“She’s here, isn’t she?” came Brenner’s voice, and Joyce turned to see him looking around desperately - and her heart sank, because the bulb at the edge of the table, closest to where she’d seen Eleven, was lit bright. 

She turned to back to El, back to the void, and tried her best reassuring smile. “I’m okay,” she whispered, but even she knew that was a weak attempt. 

“Papa is there,” El said, less of a question than a statement.

Joyce nodded. “Please,” she said suddenly, voice strained, “you can’t let him take you again. Stay far, far away.”

The girl’s face was defiant, and she didn’t answer. All she did was strain her gaze at the cuffs, which she unlocked with a quick movement of her head, and met Joyce’s gaze. “Be ready,” she whispered, then melted away. 

Half-afraid the whole thing had been a hallucination, Joyce tried the cuffs, tight on her wrists. She did her best to conceal her gasp of relief when they were slack and loose. El couldn’t use her powers across vast distances - so she must be close. Joyce wasn’t sure if that was a comfort or just another anxiety.

Brenner rounded on her, eyes furious. “I know she’s here,” he said, his voice low and deadly, and she cringed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her newfound freedom giving her confidence. 

He loomed over her and backhanded her over the face. She slowly sat up, pain blossoming on her cheek, fury building in her veins. The table was right there, the bulbs ready and waiting, and she let the anger take over until the hot brightness was burning to the touch. Then it exploded in his face. 

There was fiery light and a flash of blood and he yelled out in pain, stumbling back. She stood up, freeing her hands. She went straight for the handgun tucked in the back of his waistband - as if she hadn’t noticed - and when he made to straighten up, she swung it over the back of his skull, hard. He went down.

And then he was unconscious at her feet, this man who’d caused her family so much pain. Who’d taken her boy from her, who’d destroyed any semblance of childhood El could have had. She weighed the gun in her hand, its shape feeling heavy and alien. At home they had a shotgun, left over from Lonnie’s hunting days, that she’d made sure to practice with occasionally, a just-in-case. But she’d never used a handgun - an oversight she was beginning to regret, with the Lab’s shit intruding on their lives becoming an almost annual occurrence.

It felt dangerous in her hand. Such a small device, that could end Brenner’s life with the jerk of her finger on the trigger. She looked down at him, bleeding and prone, and contemplated it - his awful spectre, that had haunted them for so long, finally gone. Destroyed in a moment.

Then she swayed on her feet and everything blurred, and all she could think about was staying upright. She grabbed the table to support herself, Brenner forgotten, when suddenly there were shouts outside. She froze, stricken, but the rapid footsteps went past without stopping and the corridor outside was silent once more.

Joyce took a deep breath and went to the door - because if there was a gunshot heard from the small, bare room, someone was bound to come running. She couldn’t give Brenner what he deserved, not yet.

Then she doubled back and tore his security pass off his jacket, clutching it tight in her hand and hoping it would be enough.

When she opened the door, the corridor was deserted. There was a red light flashing overhead, driving alarm into her stomach, but she couldn’t stop. Scarcely believing her luck, she traversed three long corridors before seeing a single soul - then she ducked back round the latest corner at the sound of voices.

“-Brenner done now?” It was a man, tone colored with annoyance.

“Haven’t you noticed the freak weather? Some kinda inter-dimensional snowstorm is headed our way, if you believe the weirdos in lab coats. They got tremors up at the old Lab, that’s why they’re all scurrying around like rats, meanwhile we’re running a fucking skeleton staff-“

The voices faded into the distance, and she peered out to see that the men were in military green, each clutching something bulky and dark - machine guns. She slammed herself back against the wall, heart pounding in her throat. Jesus, this was deep shit. 

Hands shaking, she edged herself back into the corridor, choosing the opposite way to the soldiers. In truth she was directionless, and it was only a matter of time before the combined effect of exhaustion and the drugs caught up with her - she was just hoping she’d find one of those glowing red exit signs, like the ones she’d seen in her dreams.

Then she heard gunshots, and a young girl’s scream, and she began to run.


	13. The Corridor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit goes down.

The gunshots rang out in the eerily silent building, just as El screamed in fright and Hopper dragged her out of the way in the nick of time. He returned the fire with a quick, accurate shot of his own, and the man slumped to the floor. He wasn’t a soldier, only a scientist in a white coat, but the sound would bring men with machine guns running. He swore. 

He turned to look at El. She was pale, face bloody from the strain of using her powers, but her expression was hard. 

His radio crackled to life. “Chief, we heard gunshots, you okay?” came Jonathan’s hushed voice. They’d decided to split up into pairs, with the reasoning that they could more easily go unnoticed - but Hopper felt uneasy at the idea of the two teenagers roaming the halls alone. 

“Uh, yeah, but I think we’re about to have company - I need you two to lay low, you understand? That’s an order.”

Jonathan agreed, somewhat reluctantly, then the radio fell silent. Hopper bent over the scientist’s body and rooted through the pockets, finding a security pass. Then he straightened up and turned to El. “We gotta find Joyce and get the hell out of here,” he said, and she nodded.

Then there was a shout, and a gunshot, and several things happened at once.

A group of soldiers marched into view at the other end of the corridor, raising their guns - but before they could shoot again, there was a snarling, raging sound and a dog skittered into view, chasing behind them.

Hopper flinched instinctively, memories of the so-called Demodogs flashing through his mind - but this was just a dog. Just a dog, he was thinking to himself as it leapt on one of the men and tore him apart. Blood spurted, showering from slavering jaws. The rest’s attention flew from Hopper and El to the dog and their guns fired rapidly, but the beast wasn’t slowed-

He had grabbed El’s arm and was starting to pull her away, keeping his gun trained on the soldiers and the dog - if it even was a dog - when he stopped in his tracks. Behind the chaos of the men and the blood, looking shaken and alarmed, was-

“Joyce!” El cried desperately. His stomach turned at the sight of her, because she looked like hell - her skin was sallow, slick with grime and sweat, her hair plastered to her forehead, her shirt turning sheer as it clung to her shaking frame. There was a murky bruise spreading on her cheek and her arms, which were trembling as she held a gun out in front of her, were covered in dark splotches - the beginnings of track marks. 

She was wavering, gaze unfocused. “Stay there!” he yelled, because the dog - somehow with supernatural strength - was almost done with the soldiers, unhindered by their bullets. Her eyes snapped up to meet his, suddenly clear and sharp, before everything slowed down.

The dog stalked forward, not towards her at the far end of the corridor, but towards Hopper and El. He fired at it, once, twice, to no effect - it bared its teeth. El raised a hand, but then there was gunfire behind them and more soldiers, and she turned to face them instead, and the dog was gathering itself to leap-

There was a bright, hot flash. The dog fell down, dazed. El dispatched the soldiers with a twist of her hand and in the same movement killed the dog, and forgetting himself Hopper stared in something like awe. They stood in the corridor littered with carnage, the only survivors of whatever the fuck that was-

Then everything was forgotten and Joyce was all he could see, because her legs folded and then she was falling. He rushed to her, leaving El frozen behind him, and grabbed at her hand.

“Joyce,” he said desperately. “Joyce, can you hear me?”

There was a sound from the end of the corridor and he looked up, every muscle tensing, to see Jonathan and Nancy running towards them. Jonathan dropped to his knees beside his mom and pulled her into his lap with shaking hands. He gasped in relief when she blinked open strained eyes.

“Jonathan,” she whispered, voice hoarse. Her gaze shifted to Hopper and she weakly squeezed his hand. “Brenner- back there- knocked him out-“

He gripped her hand tight. “We’ll get him,” he said, the rage boiling in his bones as he looked her over - her bruised, clammy skin, the blood dripping from her nose. He glanced at Nancy, hovering behind Jonathan with the gun tight in her grip.

The girl met his gaze steadily. “Go. We’ll get her out.”

Hopper hesitated. The corridors were dangerous, as evidenced by that fucking dog. But Brenner - they couldn’t let him get away. Not now, not when they had him right there.

Impulsively he lifted Joyce’s hand to his lips and kissed it, brief and tender. Then he looked at Jonathan, thought about telling him to take care of her, but he knew it was unspoken that the kid would do anything for his mom. 

He stood up, looked at her again. She was slipping into delirium, eyes fluttering feverishly, and his fist clenched.

He turned to El. “I need you to protect them,” he said.

There was a struggle in her eyes. He could tell she half wanted to confront Brenner, to face her demons once and for all, yet the other part of her shrank from it - and there was also her deep, ferocious concern for Joyce. 

“Please, I need you to get Joyce out safe,” he said in a low tone. She nodded finally, gravely. He hugged her tight, kissed her forehead. Then he gripped his gun, and moved off down the corridor.

—

When he found the room, he was glad he hadn’t let El accompany him. It was dank and small, the table stacked with used syringes and shattered light bulbs. Brenner was stirring on the floor, blood thickening his white hair scarlet, and Hopper darted forward and grabbed him by the lapels before he could do anything.

“All right, you fucking asshole, you’re coming with me.” 

The man blinked slowly. “D’you- d’you think you can abduct me, without the entire National Guard coming down on Hawkins like the wrath of God?” He was slurring, perhaps concussed - clearly Joyce had hit him hard.

“Oh, I think you’ll be lucky if my only crime is _abduction_.” He dragged him upright. “Now tell me what the fuck was in those syringes.”

Brenner muttered something, and Hopper shook him hard. “Amphetamine in one arm, barbiturate in th’other.”

His stomach dropped. He knew more about CIA torture techniques than most (they’d been halfway to recruiting him after ‘Nam and he’d known plenty of less than savory agents when he was there) - so when the names fell from Brenner’s mouth he recognised them immediately. It had fallen out of favor, because it required drugs that were expensive and hard to procure, but it was a gruelling experience for the subject, sending them into what the CIA fondly called the ‘twilight zone’ - an agonising state somewhere between dream and reality, characterised by hyper-alert panic and exhaustion simultaneously.

For Joyce to go through that-

He dragged Brenner out into the corridor rather harder than necessary. He kept him close, gun trained, so that if he had to he could use him as a hostage - though he knew if it came to that, he wouldn’t make it very far.

In truth, taking Brenner was more trouble than it was worth. He should just put a bullet in his brain and be done with it, but Hopper had questions - questions only he could answer. And at the back of his mind there was a half-formed plan, to make some sort of trade. Brenner for Hawkins, and everyone in it. Their shit out of his town, like they’d promised before and hadn’t delivered.

The corridors were blessedly empty. He couldn’t relax, however, because the silence felt loaded, suspicious. Like something big was happening.

“Where is everyone?” he questioned Brenner, who gave a cold grimace.

“You’re not our biggest problem, in fact,” he said elusively.

Hopper pressed the gun hard against his skull. “What the hell does that mean?”

Brenner flinched, and scowled. “It means th’other side is getting closer again.”

The other side - that had to mean the Upside Down. His heart sank at the thought. First the whole mess with Brenner and Joyce, now the resurgence of the whole supernatural nightmare - this was getting out of hand.

They had reached the exit, no more than a fire escape. He propelled them both outside, eyes searching for soldiers or more monstrous dogs, when Brenner gasped audibly and Hopper looked up.

Falling with impossible beauty from the midnight sky were white flakes that he didn’t even recognise at first. It was nearly May, though the outside temperature didn’t reflect that, so it was the last thing he expected to see - but he couldn’t deny the evidence of his own eyes.

It was snowing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl i kind of hate this chapter - i’m much more comfortable writing the reflective bits between the action, but you know. this had to happen. next chapter will be much slower and more thoughtful.
> 
> love you all !! xxx


	14. Family Only

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath.

Hopper knew several things for certain. One, they needed a base, somewhere to collect themselves. If nothing else, Joyce needed somewhere to rest and recover from the past few days’ ordeal - and she couldn’t stay in that hospital room, where Jonathan had brought her, for too long. There, she was as good as a sitting duck. Two, they couldn’t go back to the cabin. Brenner’s people, even leaderless, would have found it by then, found it and ransacked it. Three, Joyce’s place was also not an option. 

So that left him here, in a dingy motel room with peeling carpet. He’d deliberately chosen the most notorious one he could find, the kind of place Hawkins’ middle class took hookers and paid in cash for the premium of no CCTV and no questions. The kind of place that let its guests get away with murder. 

(He cringed at the thought of bringing Joyce and El here to this shithole. But he’d run out of options, and he had to keep them safe.)

He stared at the light, flickering almost imperceptibly - not down to anything or anyone supernatural this time, but just shitty wiring. It was still snowing outside, and the room was drafty and cold - but that was the least of his worries right now. 

He’d gone through the room systematically, checking every inch for surveillance devices. He’d found none. He hadn’t expected to find anything, but it couldn’t hurt to check - they couldn’t afford to be found, not now.

It was a decent size, despite the overall dinginess - made up of a dim bedroom and a cramped, outdated bathroom. He’d paid a premium (all in cash, of course) for two rooms, the other with space for all five of them - because this wasn’t only a refuge, a place to regroup, but also a place to question Brenner.

He gritted his teeth as he thought of him. God, he burned to put a bullet in his brain and be done with it. But he couldn’t do that, not yet.

Instead he grabbed a sad-looking chair and placed it in the center of the room. He’d stopped on the way here for supplies, supplies that he now tipped out on the sofa - duct tape, a loaf of bread, ammunition, Eggos for El. Then he carefully extracted the sleeve of syringes he’d taken from that room - blue for barbiturate, yellow for amphetamine. Give Brenner a taste of his own medicine, so to speak.

He stared at it for a moment silently. The calamity of the last few days - he could scarcely process it. Hopper was no stranger to so-called ‘enhanced interrogation’, but Joyce-

Joyce, who was so good and kind and loving. Joyce, who looked at him like he meant the world, when he wasn’t so sure he deserved it. The Joyce who fought her way back to her son, who traversed the Upside Down, who glared at him with fire in her eyes, was the same Joyce who taught Will uncool dance moves, who giggled at innuendos and still choked on unfiltered cigarettes. 

It was at that moment his already weak resolve began to crumble.

Because he’d decided to keep his distance from her, to be a protector but not a friend. To watch over her from afar.

(He was realising now how condescending that was, how selfish. Joyce didn’t need his protection, she needed his presence by her side. A teammate, a partner-in-crime.)

But even though he’d made this decision, even though he’d cast her in his mind as out of bounds, the sick fear in his gut didn’t go away. His mouth was dry, his heart pounding at the thought of her in pain, of losing her-

A feeling that wouldn’t go away, however much he shoved at it. 

A feeling that made him want to take her in his arms and never let go, hold her tight and whisper assurances in her ear. (Or maybe be whispered to, because there was something about her warmth that could never fail to make him feel better.)

He lit a cigarette, watching the smoke drift in lazy curls. Even smoking reminded him of her. She’d started before him, a chainsmoker at fifteen - he’d taken it up when it gave him an excuse to sit with her under the bleachers. They’d smoked Lucky Strikes back then, her bumming his then passing them back red with her lipstick - the same lipstick that she later left smudges of on his collar. Now they smoked Camels, and she didn’t wear lipstick, and they didn’t sneak kisses between 5th and 6th period, but it was the same nostalgia that haunted him. Joyce’s large, dark eyes, unchanged in twenty-five years.

He couldn’t distance himself. He knew that now. He and Joyce were inextricably connected, bound closer than blood. He could worry about her from afar, or he could worry about her by his side - put like that, it was a simple choice.

Hopper would go to her bedside, and tell her he’d been an idiot, and hope that she forgave him. That they could be a family, a real one.

But first, he had something to take care of.

—

Jonathan watched his brother, sitting by their mom’s bedside with his hand on hers. El was curled beside him, dozing in the hard plastic chair. It was nearly morning, pre-dawn light filtering through the hospital blinds and casting them in a pale glow. It had stopped snowing. The white settled on the streets and cars as if it were late December, not early May. 

All he could think about now, however, was his mom. He could deal with the rest later. She looked pale and small in the bed, but better than she had in the sickly light of the power station - her face was clean of blood, at least, and her brief fever seemed to have abated.

He turned the walkman over in his hands, feeling its hard plastic ridges with a jolt of recollection to last year, when he and Nancy had used the same device. The nurse had found it tucked under Joyce’s shirt. He had to marvel at her bravery, because if it was what he suspected it was- if she’d managed to get something on Brenner, something solid-

Jonathan was jolted out of his musings by the approach of a doctor, and he slipped the device into his pocket.

“You’re Jonathan, right? Her son?”

He nodded and stood up. “A nurse spoke to me earlier- told me she’d be okay-“

The doctor nodded. “Your mom’s gonna be fine, don’t worry. We had to sedate her, but she’ll wake up soon. What I wanted to speak to you about - and I know you’re her kid, so I apologise if I’m burdening you - is what happened to her.” He stepped closer with professional concern in his eyes. “The marks on her arms - those are from repeated injections. Drugs. And she had a seizure consistent with amphetamine overdose. If your Mom has a problem, we can get her some help-“

Jonathan shook his head rapidly. “No, it’s nothing like that-“

“Often, if someone has a problem, they do a very good job of hiding it. Especially if they’re a parent.”

“Trust me, it’s not like that.”

The doctor looked unconvinced. “Listen, if you weren’t eighteen I’d have to call child services. As it is, all I can offer is advice.”

Jonathan scowled. “Thanks,” he muttered, and the guy moved off with an offended expression. He returned to his position on the chair, resting his chin on his hands and staring into the distance. A seizure- God. His stomach turned. And his Mom, a drug addict? He supposed it seemed less fantastical than the truth, to the outside observer. 

He just hoped the doctor kept his oath of confidentiality, because that was something she did not need added to Hawkins’ gossip mill, not when she was the subject of so much rumor already. 

He went to the door when he heard raised voices outside. Hopper was having a stand-off with the receptionist down the hall, who was telling him insistently that it was “family only”.

Jonathan went down to join them. “It’s alright.” 

She looked at him questioningly. “Is this man family? Because if not, no dice.”

“He’s my Mom’s boyfriend,” he said on impulse, and Hopper’s gaze snapped to him with an unreadable expression - surprise? Gratitude?

The receptionist gave way begrudgingly and the chief followed him down the hall. When they got to Joyce’s room he halted, eyes serious. “Thanks,” he said.

Jonathan looked away. “I don’t know what’s going on between you, but I know she- she needs you.” He wasn’t sure he trusted Hopper fully, not yet, but the fierce dedication and determination he’d seen in the man’s eyes that night had gone a long way. “Hey, uh, they found this on her.” He produced the walkman and Hopper’s eyes widened.

“She was recording it? Have you- has she-“

“She hasn’t woken up yet,” Jonathan said, anticipating his question. “I guess we gotta listen to it, see if she got anything solid on Brenner.”

“Shit,” Hopper said, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Your Mom’s brave as hell.”

He nodded. What was there to say? Time and time again, despite the whole world conspiring against her, his Mom kept on going. Fighting, for herself and Will and him. 

They entered the room, and Jonathan leant against the wall as Hopper took a seat by her bedside. The chief reached for her hand, expression tender, and the moment felt heartbreakingly intimate. There was Joyce, and Hopper, and Will, and El asleep in the chair, and they felt like a family - a real family, something whole. 

—

Joyce drifted in and out of consciousness for a while, as the drugs worked their way out of her system. At one point she was aware of Jonathan by her side, talking quietly to Will, and then of El’s hand on hers, before everything went dark again. Another time she surfaced from the depths of her sleep to blink half-lidded eyes at Hopper, sitting anxiously by her bedside. “Hop,” she murmured, eyes already falling shut. 

His hand found hers and squeezed. “I’m here, Joyce. I’m here.”

Then she was sucked into dark, dreamless sleep once more.

Finally, she woke to her whole body aching, like she’d run a great distance. Her head was pounding. Her chest felt fragile. She blinked her eyes open slowly, wary of what she’d find - maybe her delirious escape from Brenner was nothing more than a fever dream.

But her gaze alighted on Will, looking pale and anxious in the dawn light, his hands clenched in his lap. When he saw her he sat up, face brightening. “Mom,” he said quietly. She saw that El was asleep in the chair beside him, and felt a thrill of relief that they were both safe.

“Hey,” she whispered, her tongue feeling thick and heavy in her mouth. He took her hand and she squeezed it. His fingers brushed the IV attached to the back of her hand and she shuddered, the sight of it unwelcome. It was a stark reminder that she was weak, and infirm, and couldn’t run - and, besides the point, she really couldn’t afford whatever hospital bills they’d load on her. 

She jumped when there was a sound on her other side, and she turned to see Hopper slumped in the chair, faint snores escaping. Unbidden, a smile rose on her face at the sight.

Jonathan was on the floor, his back to the wall, head tilted back so he appeared to be dozing. As she watched, however, his eyes opened and a relieved smile appeared as he looked at her. 

“You okay?” she mouthed. 

He nodded with an expression of exasperation at her selflessness. He opened his mouth to say something, but then Hopper stirred in the chair.

“Joyce,” he breathed.

She looked at him, sitting there with exhaustion writ large in his frame, exhaustion that she’d been the cause of. Everything seemed irrelevant now, all their pushing and pulling. The image of his worried eyes, his face fierce and bloody, the touch of his hand on hers - it was all she could think of. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked, sitting forward.

She grimaced. “What do you think?” she replied, but there was no bite to it. He smiled slightly. “Brenner?”

His gaze went hard. “I’ve got him. He’s got a lot to answer for.”

“What-“ She sat up with an effort, her very bones aching. “What are you going do with him?”

“I, uh, I don’t know,” Hopper said, looking away.

She frowned. “You’re not gonna trade him- you can’t-“ His silence was as good as confirmation. She sat up further, fighting her wearied nerves. “If we let him get away-“

He flinched. “What else am I supposed to do? They hold all the cards, Joyce. We’ve got nothing but him.”

Her mind raced furiously to find a solution. She was still groggy from her sleep and whatever was in the IV, but the one thing she knew like crystal was that they couldn’t let Brenner go. Not again. He’d just return, and make everything worse, as he always did - and Joyce wanted to see him suffer. See him burn, like she and El had burned.

“What if we got a confession?” she said finally. “On film? We’ve got the recording- we could- we could get a camera, from Radioshack-“

She barely flinched at the name, which she considered an achievement.

Hopper looked thoughtful, if sceptical. “We can’t expose you, or El, or the other numbers, but if we edited the truth a little-“

There was hope, then, blossoming in her chest. A light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe they could really end this, make Brenner and his people pay for what they’d done to her family. (El was included under that umbrella, because she was her daughter in all but blood.)

Jonathan stood up, smiled awkwardly. “I’m gonna get a coffee, do you want anything?” 

Will stood up too. “Can we get food?” he asked, and Jonathan ruffled his brother’s hair. 

“Sure,” he said, then turned to them.

Joyce shook her head, but Hopper asked for a coffee, black, no sugar. She could have recited it, if he hadn’t said - the quick, simple request was ingrained in her mind. It was the same way she took it, though she rarely had coffee these days - caffeine had too much of an effect on her, made her anxious unduly. Hopper considered it a lifestyle, however. Coffee was as much a part of his daily routine as smoking was of hers (and his, to be fair).

Smoking. Her hands were shaking slightly, her nerves jittering, in the tell-tale signs of nicotine withdrawal. It had been maybe twenty hours since her last smoke and she was dying for it. (The therapist she’d seen only once, several years ago, had told her that smoking was on the whole bad for her anxiety, but that withdrawal could increase its severity - so she’d decided not to bother.)

Hopper seemed to sense her frustration. “Smoke?” he asked quietly. She nodded.

He handed her one silently, leaning close to light it. Jonathan and Will had gone, so it was only them in the room (and El, who was still sleeping deeply). When the cigarette was lit and she’d taken a drag, removing it from her lips with a sigh of relief, he stayed close, eyes intent.

“Last night- you-“ Hopper’s gaze dropped, suddenly embarrassed. “I was so scared that- that I’d lose you.”

The words made her irrationally angry, even as her heart fluttered. She didn’t know how to feel, not when his eyes were so open and raw. “What are we doing here, Hop?” she asked wearily. 

He was silent for a moment. She took another puff of the cigarette, noticing absently that it was gentler on her throat than the unfiltered ones he smoked. He seemed to recognise her ease and smiled despite himself. “Got you some Camel Filters. I know how you hate mine.”

“Thanks,” she said, really meaning it. Some of her frustration dissipated at this simple act of consideration - he knew her so well. “Hop, when you say you were scared-“

“I was - I was terrified.” His voice was intense, loaded. “When- when Jonathan told me you were missing, both times, all I could think was- _I can’t lose her too_.” He paused. “I- um- that’s why I’ve been so distant.”

She frowned. “You’ve been more than _distant,_ Hop, it’s like you don’t even like me sometimes, and others like you- you want to kiss me-“ She looked away, cheeks burning. Maybe she’d read it wrong, maybe it was just wishful thinking-

Her racing thoughts were interrupted by the press of lips on hers, hot and tender and _there._ She was still for one surprised moment and Hopper became hesitant against her, beginning to pull back like he’d made a mistake- then she reached for him and her lips parted against his.

The kiss was warm, and full. It wasn’t lustful, heated like their makeout sessions under the steps at high school, nor was it slow or gentle - it felt like a culmination, like something had clicked.

He pulled back, eyes soft. “I- I’m sorry, for the way I treated you. I’ve just been so- um, so scared, but I know now even if I distance myself that’s not gonna go away.”

Joyce pressed her forehead against his. “You have to promise not to mess me around, Hop, I can’t do that. I need you- I need you to be there. Always.”

“I will, I swear. I swear.” He kissed her forehead and sat back, expression warm and open, and it felt strange that this hadn’t happened sooner.

There was movement on her right and she saw that El was beginning to stir, eyes blinking open sleepily, and widening at the sight of her. Then her arms were full of the girl, all brown curls and thick flannel, warm and trembling and alive. “Hey, careful,” Hopper said, the hint of laughter in his voice. “Be gentle with her.”

“You’re okay?” El asked, sitting back. 

She nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “For saving me.”

The girl looked earnest. “You’re my Mom,” she said, and Joyce’s heart melted. She looked at Hopper over El’s head, and his expression matched the warmth in her. “Papa- he hurt you.”

Joyce looked down, eyes on the IV in her hand and the track marks on her arms. “Yeah, he did,” she said quietly. “But I’m okay.”

She took a drag of the cigarette, which was nearly burnt out, and watched the cloud of smoke dissipate in the now-sunlit room. Almost unconsciously she raised her other hand to her lips, the memory of the kiss burning in her mind. 

Then Jonathan and Will returned, her youngest clutching mountains of vending machine chocolate. Jonathan handed Hopper his coffee and sat down beside him, and then they were all there - Jonathan and Will and El and Hopper, her family.

Maybe she was overstepping, overreaching, but it felt right somehow. Something she could get used to.

Later they’d have to deal with Brenner, and the Lab, and whatever shit the Upside Down was stirring this time. But for now, this was enough - this sunlit hospital room, the smell of smoke and coffee, her children by her side and her partner, through it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your weekly reminder that i love the hopper-byers and s3 better do them justice.
> 
> let me know your thoughts!!   
> xxx


	15. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May, 1970.

_May 1970_

It was raining hard, the water running in rivulets off the roofs and forming puddles on the street. The late afternoon light was blue and dark, the beginnings of summer heavy with sticky humidity. 

Hopper stared out the window of his car at the pouring rain. He hadn’t missed this, the cloying warmth of Indiana summers, though it had nothing on the oppressive heat of ‘Nam. He lit a cigarette, pinching his lips around it and breathing in deep. He’d been trying to cut back from the pack he’d smoked a day over there, but the addiction, evidenced in his yellowing, trembling fingers, was kicking his ass.

He was back in town only briefly before he headed off to New York, where there was a shiny new job waiting for him. He’d wanted to pick up some things, stuff left over from his mom’s house that he hadn’t had time to collect on his brief leave for her funeral. But here he was, just sitting in his car on Main Street while the rain poured down, smoking and wishing he hadn’t come back here. Here, to this shitty little town that held far too many memories.

There was a knock on the window and he jumped.

“Excuse me?” came a muffled voice, their appearance blurred by the water running down the glass.

He rolled down the window to see a woman holding an umbrella. She had high, angular cheekbones, and red hair in a choppy bob that made her face look sharp and severe. She smiled politely, if coldly, at him. “Mind if I come in?”

Politeness winning out over his natural reluctance, he nodded. She went round and sat beside him, shaking out her umbrella.

“You’re Jim Hopper, right?”

He nodded again, warily. 

“Just back from Vietnam, huh? You’re quite the local hero.”

Something about her sharp grey gaze made him uncomfortable. He looked away. “Did you want something?”

“Yes. I work up at Hawkins Lab, a faculty for the Department of Energy. We could always use some locals on staff.”

“What, they want me?” Hopper was taken aback, and his every fibre recoiled from the prospect. He had to get out of this shitty town. He wouldn’t stay for all the money in the world.

Her eyes burned into his, a smirk flitting across her face as if she could read his thoughts. “Not one for the small town life, are you? That’s too bad. We could’ve used a man like you.”

This felt almost like a tap on the shoulder, like the prod the CIA had given him on his last day in camp. Department of Energy - that sounded like a front for something suspicious if ever he’d heard it. He wondered what they were doing up there. Spying on the Reds, probably, or trying to win the space race. Either way, he was done with government shit. 

“If that’s all-“ he started to say, then stopped short. His gaze had wandered to the street outside, and he’d spotted a familiar figure. She seemed frailer, with her hair around her face and a jacket that swamped her slim frame, but it was her. Joyce. 

She was running across the street, head bowed against the rain, and he watched her disappear into _The Rabbit Hole_ , a small and seedy bar that had just opened. 

The woman was watching him watching her, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her smile. “Joyce Byers,” she started, and his heart clenched - she’d married Lonnie? That fucking asshole? “Rumor is he got her knocked up, and married her to avoid the scandal. Now she’s working at that bar to scrape by her bills while Lonnie spends his days on the couch.”

Hopper clenched his fist. Lonnie- god, he’d kill him. But then again, this wasn’t his business, not anymore. He and Joyce were long finished. She’d made it clear to him that what she did was nothing to do with him. 

The woman looked disappointed - as if she’d read his thoughts, and wanted him to go after Joyce. To stick around in Hawkins a while longer.

His eyes were drawn to hers unwillingly and her gaze burned, almost painful in its intensity. Memories surfaced in his mind unbidden - Joyce smirking at him underneath the steps, dancing with him in a drunken haze, screaming at him tearfully with a bottle of vodka in hand. He flinched, because the parade felt almost invasive - like this woman was in his mind, in his head, extracting and inspecting his thoughts.

He drew back. “Uh, is that all?”

“Yes,” she said, seemingly satisfied. “That’s all. You’ve been most instructive.”

She raised a tissue to her nose as she left the car, bright with a spot of red, and he stared unseeing at the dashboard. God, what the fuck was that?

Of course, he later found a black spot of exactly five minutes in his memory, as if he’d fallen asleep in his car. The woman was a hazy, faceless blur, and her photograph, when he saw it in a paper clipping, was unrecognisable.

Just a fleeting glimpse, a passing encounter gone as soon as it happened.

An encounter that changed everything, though he didn’t know it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a brief break this week, as we’ve reached the end of ‘part one’.


	16. The Motel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce and Hop confront Brenner.

_Fourteen Years, Eleven Months Later_

Joyce stared dully at the tiles, which were what could only be described as ‘mint green’. The whole bathroom was clad in them, complete with multiple cracks and stained grouting, and one smudge of something that looked suspiciously like blood. 

But there was a shower, at least, and she thanked whoever was listening for small mercies. She took the opportunity to wash the sweat and grime off her skin, the antiseptic smell of the hospital. Her arms were plastered in band-aids, the wound left by the IV itching underneath one, that flexed uncomfortably when she moved.

Still, a small price to pay. There remained a dull ache at the back of her skull, but she was here. She was whole.

Whole physically, at least. As the water ran scorching over her face, plastered her hair to her scalp, she reflected that it felt like she was losing parts of herself. Like they were flaking away, crumbling into dust. Until there was nothing left.

Her chest felt tight suddenly, and she turned the water off and leant against the tiles. She took a deep breath. Her reality had narrowed to this - to her pounding heart, her shaky breathing. To the sickly green tiles and the faintly flickering light.

But there was more than nothing left. There was Will, and Jonathan, and El, who looked at her so adoringly. There was Hopper, who kissed her like she meant something. There was the glimpse of revenge on the horizon, gleaming dark like a promise, and the hope of freedom from the Lab’s bloody legacy. 

That had to be enough.

Slowly she straightened up, turning on the water. The hot stream felt cleansing, and she let the loud rush of the water drown out the pounding of her blood.

When she was finally clean - as clean as she’d ever feel - and the sting in her eyes from the cheap shampoo Hopper had bought had faded, she wrapped a towel around herself and stared at the grimy mirror. There was a pale fluorescent light above it that cast her in a sickly sheen, making her look washed out and unhealthy. The bags under her eyes were prominent, her face strained and hollow-

She looked away. With any luck, this would be the worst it got. Still, the thought of Hopper kissing her when she looked like this-

_He must really love me,_ she thought wryly, then froze. What was she thinking? He’d kissed her once, _once,_ and she was doing that thing she used to deride Karen for in high school - planning the wedding after a single look-

Joyce sighed. She had to stop this, stop overthinking it. Hopper was warm and strong and there for her, and that was all that mattered right now. (The fact that his embrace made her feel whole, that his gaze evoked a wholly deeper emotion than mere affection, was irrelevant.)

She ran a comb through her hair hurriedly, wincing at the tangles, then slipped her clothes on over still-wet skin. She couldn’t stay in that bathroom another moment longer - in that uneasy green cast, that flickering light.

The clothes she had were an odd, scavenged mix - her jeans, salvaged from the night before, a baggy t shirt from Jonathan, and a maroon sweatshirt that was at least four sizes too big. It swallowed her up, but it was warm and soft and smelled suspiciously like smoke and Hopper’s aftershave.

When she went out to the bedroom, still towelling off her hair, she found Will and El sitting on the bed playing some card game. El crowed as she flashed an ace and Will sighed, before they spotted her. Both of them smiled, El with heartbreaking empathy and Will bright and warm. 

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

She nodded and touched his shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about me, you know.” She caught El’s anxious look. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Papa- Brenner- he’s so close,” the girl said. She looked shamefaced at her fear and Joyce bent to face her.

“He can’t get you, okay? We’re gonna deal with him. We’re gonna finish this.”

She nodded slowly. “I want to see him.”

Joyce frowned. It was clear what a visceral effect he had on the girl, how he threw her off balance, and that could be dangerous for all of them. But equally she had a right to face him, her tormentor. To look him in the eye. 

“Is Hopper next door?” Joyce asked, finding her shoes. “I have to talk to him first. Then maybe you can see Brenner.”

El looked somewhat satisfied, and they nodded. “Jonathan went out to tell the others what happened,” Will said. “Do you think the Lab is looking for us?”

She didn’t know how to answer that. “We’re as protected as we can be. Don’t open the door to anyone but us, don’t answer the phone, and we should be okay.”

They nodded gravely. She spotted the pack of Camel Filters on the bedside table, along with a lighter, and brought one to her lips with a grateful sigh. She knew she had to go next door, to face Brenner, but she was reluctant to leave the warm peace of the room. 

The kids followed her out to the anteroom, where Hopper had set up the sofabed. She turned to them when she reached the door.

“Remember, radio if you need us. We’re just next door.”

They both nodded with serious expressions, and then she went outside into the freezing cold. It was blindingly white wherever she looked. The journey to the other room was short, only a couple of steps, but she withdrew deeper into her sweatshirt against the biting wind. Then she knocked on the door in the pattern Hopper had taught her, and he opened it a moment later.

“Joyce,” he said, as if it had been weeks since he’d last seen her, as opposed to half an hour.

“Hop, hey.” She met his eyes, answering the silent question - _are you okay?_ \- that lingered in his gaze. She ducked under his arm and entered the room. It was dimly lit, the blinds closed against prying eyes, and Brenner’s hated figure was slumped on a chair in the middle of it.

He was sweating, his eyes flitting to her nervously, and it took one look at the way he was swaying and the syringes on the table for her to work out what was going on. She felt ill at the thought.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she muttered to Hopper, before moving to stand before Brenner. He looked up at her balefully, his jaw tight.

“Six,” he slurred. “They’re going to come for you. You and Eleven. You think you’re beyond our reach, but you’re not safe anywhere.”

Joyce scoffed lightly, a little shakily. “What did you want with me? Why did you take me again? Why now?”

Brenner looked almost pleased to tell her, even as his shoulders shook. “You were easy to get to. An obvious target. And if anyone knew where Eleven was it would be you, you who are in a relationship with her pseudo-father and are a pseudo-mother figure yourself.”

She whipped round to Hopper at that, a frown spreading on her face. A relationship - that was a word which felt forward even now, when they’d kissed and slept beside each other, let alone in the eyes of the Lab a week ago.

“Jessica,” he whispered under his breath, and she didn’t have time to call him on that, to ask him what _the fuck_ he meant, before Brenner continued to speak.

“When you started showing signs of your abilities again, we observed you with interest. It was a matter of recalling our property. You’ve come too far for us to simply allow you to carry on your normal life.”

“ _Property_?” Joyce repeated in disgust. “We’re not your fucking property.”

Brenner’s smile was thin and sinister. “Shine a blacklight on your left wrist and tell me again we don’t own you.”

Desperately, though she knew she wouldn’t find anything, she tugged up her sleeve and ran a finger over the skin of her left arm, below where the band-aids ended. It was pale, and smooth, and unblemished-

And yet, as she strained her gaze in the flickering light, she found the faint shadow of lines, a smudge that could be a number in a UV glare. She scrubbed at it with her thumb as if she could rub it off, as if that terrible dark stain, almost invisible, could be erased. It felt like a toxin, settled in her skin, branding her-

Joyce met Hopper’s gaze, and by his thunderous expression she knew he’d understood. He stepped forward and seized Brenner by the collar, voice low and dangerous. “Listen here, you piece of shit. You’re not essential, we don’t need you. The more useful information you tell us, the longer you stay alive. Beyond that-“

Brenner tilted his head up and his face twisted in a sneer. “Oh, you need me. I’m a hostage, if nothing else.”

“I’m sure we can do without,” Hopper said, releasing him roughly. “Why Joyce? Why her for your twisted experiments back in 1970?”

Joyce crossed her arms and stared at Brenner evenly.

“In 1967 we made a breakthrough. We found a gene that, if matched with the right environmental factors, led to psionic abilities. We screened most of Hawkins, and found the gene in less than 0.1% of its population. Then we sent out the most successful of our prior subjects to assess which of the genetically predisposed were the most suitable candidates. Of whom Six was one.”

“Two,” Joyce whispered, almost unconsciously. “The one who died.”

Brenner nodded, eyes apathetic. “Her telepathy killed her, in the end. She was too powerful, and we didn’t anticipate the effects of our experiments. A pity. She was most promising.”

She heard Hopper scoff behind her, but her attention was on Brenner. “Who else did you take?”

He shrugged. “No one of interest. They all died, anyway - subjects Three to Seven, excluding yourself of course, had no living relatives, no one to pass the gene on to. You, on the other hand - we made sure to keep a careful eye on your family.”

Her stomach turned.

“Then why not take Jonathan and Will?” This came from Hopper and she turned to stare at him in horror, panic rising in her throat at the thought.

Brenner, however, merely raised his eyebrows. “My superiors were growing weary of our… lack of progress. They wanted me to focus our attentions on fewer subjects, after Two’s death. Younger, more malleable subjects who wouldn’t be missed. The disappearance of the entire Byers family would have raised too many questions.”

“So who’s left?” She pressed, more than a little disturbed by his casual tone.

“Yourself, of course, and Eleven.” He turned to stare at the wall as if he knew she was there, protected only by peeling wallpaper and thin plasterboard.

Joyce stepped forward, wanting to draw his attention away. “And? We can’t be the only survivors.”

Brenner’s expression became smugly inscrutable. He didn’t answer.

Hopper moved closer, tall and solid and imposing, but Joyce grabbed his arm before he could do anything. There was no use in forcing Brenner to talk - not yet, anyway - because he was unlikely to tell them anything he didn’t want to. “We need to talk,” she said, voice low. 

He followed her outside, into the brisk cold. “Joyce, we’re not getting anywhere. If we want a taped confession that keeps both you and El safe-“

“El wants to see him,” she interrupted, and watched as his face closed off.

“No, absolutely not, no fucking way-“

“She has a right to,” she returned quietly. “More than anyone, she has a right to. I- I don’t even _remember_ everything he did to me, but he had her for at least a decade. Ten years, Hop.”

“Which is why it’s so dangerous. For all we know he could be bluffing, maybe he doesn’t really know she’s alive-“

“He knows. We both know he knows, Hop. She _needs_ this. He’s right there, he’s weak and tied up, it’s not like he can do anything.”

Hopper stared at her for a moment, the air between them heavy and fraught. But she didn’t back down, keeping her gaze level, and eventually he looked away. “Fine,” he ground out. “But I’m gonna be there the whole time. We’re not leaving her alone with him, not for one second.”

Joyce nodded. On that, they were agreed. 

Hopper seemed to take the moment to study her, his gaze turning gentle. The air stretched thin between them, softening into something warmer than the previous tension. “I- um, I listened to the recording. That you used that device, hid it - that was damn brave.”

She looked away. Her memory of the night was hazy, blurred by too many rounds of that painful cocktail, but she knew she sounded awful on that tape. “Is there anything we can use?” she asked, dodging his compliment. They couldn’t expose the number program - if nothing else, the media circus would be never ending and Joyce would never get a night of peace again - but there had to be something else incriminating on Brenner. There had to be.

“I don’t know, I- I gave it to Murray Bauman. He’s gonna help us with this whole mess.”

Joyce raised her eyebrows. “Can we trust him?”

Hopper shrugged, tension obvious in his shoulders. “He may be annoying as shit, but I don’t think he’s dangerous. Besides, I talked to Nancy, and she seems to trust him, so.” He huffed out a sigh. “I’ve got him coming here to help us with the confession later.”

She nodded a little apprehensively, and they were silent for a moment.

“How are you?” he asked, after his eyes had mapped her face, her still-damp hair. 

It was her turn to look away. “I’ve been better,” she admitted. She dug another cigarette out of her pocket, just to give her hands something to do; Hopper was still watching her when she removed it from her lips and breathed out smoky clouds. 

Gently, he reached for it. She shivered when his fingers brushed hers, her eyes never leaving his, and without thinking she took his wrist and guided it away. Then she leaned up and pressed their lips together.

There was no surprise or hesitation this time. Hopper was warm, his lips soft. He reached a hand around her back, tugging her closer, deepening the kiss-

The bitter cold melted away around her, everything forgotten but his touch - the rough snag of his beard, the gentle insistence of his tongue. She was on tiptoes, him leaning down, but despite the awkward angle she could have stayed that way forever.

But her fingers were growing numb, and when she opened her eyes she saw that his nose was red with cold. Reluctantly she stepped back, a shy smile spreading on her face despite herself. Hopper was looking at her with an expression so raw, so intent, that she had to look away - but she was blushing, and he raised her cigarette (nearly burnt out) to smiling lips. 

“I- uh, I should get El,” Joyce said, bringing them both back to crashing reality. 

“Uh, yeah, I’ll be here,” he said, a little breathily, and handed back her cigarette for her to take one final drag. She savored it - the rough, smoky relief hitting the back of her throat, easing the permanent ache for nicotine. One of the nicer things she and Hopper shared. Smoking under the bleachers made for a better memory than hunting through a haunted wasteland for her son - but it was the latter that had bound them together in blood.

Quickly, almost shy, she reached up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “See you in a minute,” she said. There were tentative sparks of hope blossoming in her chest, and a vision for a future that wasn’t wholly lonely-

They’d be okay. Together, they’d be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao why do i write so much plot it requires so much thinking and it sucks
> 
> anyway, let me know your thoughts, theories, questions !!  
> xx


	17. Papa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brenner screws them over, as is to be expected.

Papa. 

He was there, right there in front of her. Not just a shadow in her black void, not just an apparition that stalked her in her nightmares. El could reach out and touch him, if she dared - and then she did, pressing a trembling finger to his arm, then poking harder when he didn’t stir.

Hopper had dosed him with something from a syringe that made him sleep, though she hadn’t witnessed that part. Joyce, who was hovering anxiously behind her, had brought her in after that, so she wouldn’t have to talk to him immediately. So she could stand there, his power over her completely reversed.

But not completely, no. The sight of him still called up an animal instinct of fear inside her, adrenaline pounding in her throat. 

“You okay, sweetie?” Joyce asked, touching her arm. El looked at her, noticed the concern in her shadowed eyes, and nodded firmly. 

Hopper shifted beside her. “You ready to do this?”

Again, El nodded. “Yes,” she said - as ready as she’d ever be. Briefly she wished Mike was by her side - but then she banished the thought, because he was better off far away in his house where he was safe. She had to confront Brenner, so he’d stop chasing her in her dreams - and so he’d never go near her family and friends ever again.

Hopper reached for another syringe and she looked away. She dug her nails into her palm, noticing that Joyce mirrored her movement exactly. What they’d both been through - it left marks beyond scratches on the skin. 

Then she whipped back around, because Brenner had come to life, spluttering and shaking. His gaze, feverish as it was, immediately settled on her, and he leaned forward as far as the cuffs would allow. “Eleven,” he said. His voice was low and calm, magnetic. For a moment she thought about the loving tone he’d taken sometimes, the crayons he gave her-

Then she buried that small, fragile part of her, clenching her fist tighter. She had Hopper, and Joyce, and Mike, and Will, and even Jonathan - not to mention the rest of the Party, and Nancy and Steve too. Brenner’s love had been a twisted, pathetic copy of theirs - not real love at all, just something he used to control her. Something she didn’t need anymore.

El moved to face him, expression stony. She wouldn’t let him see her afraid.

“Eleven,” he crooned again. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

Her face twisted and she fought to hold his gaze. He had this effect on her, this presence that made part of her curl up and shrink away. But she had to stand her ground.

“I wanted to see you,” she said, and she was proud that her voice barely trembled.

Brenner’s lip curled in satisfaction, and she hurried to continue.

“I wanted to tell you I _hate_ you.”

She flinched at the thunder that crossed his expression, but then Joyce’s hand found hers and squeezed tight. El met her eyes, which silently repeated the assurance she’d given when they were outside - _If it gets too much, just let me know, okay?_ The same assurance she’d given all those months ago beside a kiddie pool in a school gym, when El was scared and silent and Joyce’s eyes were frantic. 

Hopper was a tall, solid presence on her other side, and suddenly she knew without question that both of them - her parents, in all but blood - were supportive, and strong, and loving, and wouldn’t let her down.

“I hate you,” she continued, “and you were a shitty Papa.” In the back of her mind she thought her Dad would be mad at her language, but if anyone deserved it it was Brenner.

El recoiled when he cracked a cold, perverse smile. “Oh, so you think you have a new Papa? You think these-“ he indicated Hopper and Joyce with his head “-are your new parents? You think you can play happy families? Joyce Byers - she’s a mess, she’s clinically unwell, she can barely look after her own children let alone you as well.”

Joyce visibly clenched her jaw, and out of the corner of her eye El saw Hopper trying to restrain himself from leaping at the man. 

“And Chief Hopper? The man you pretend is your father? Has he told you how he retrieved Will in 1983?”

Hopper was shaking his head, face stony, but El was drawn in unwittingly.

“He traded you, for Will. He betrayed you. He told us where you were, he returned you to us - or at least he tried. We underestimated your strength.”

It felt like the floor had dropped from beneath her feet, leaving her suspended in space. Dad- Dad had betrayed her? He’d told them where she was? He was the reason she’d had to kill those agents, maybe even the reason she’d had to leave Mike? Unconsciously she flinched away from him, even as he turned to her-

“El-“ he said. He stepped towards her, but Joyce touched his arm, and they shared a look that El couldn’t read. 

She looked at Joyce. “Did you know?” she asked, voice barely audible.

“No, I didn’t know,” the older woman responded, directing a hard stare at Hopper.

El’s eyes were blurry with the sting of unshed tears. She couldn’t be here anymore, here in this room where Brenner’s smug smile and Hopper’s tortured eyes were overwhelming. Even Joyce, as she reached for El with desperate sympathy, was too much for her - so she ran out of the room, uncaring as to where she went. Papa- Papa had gotten to her, well and truly. And Hopper-

She didn’t know who to trust anymore.

She was vaguely aware of meeting Jonathan outside. She brushed past him blindly, dodging away from him when he reached for her - and then she was out in the white, bright snow with one destination in mind, the one person who hadn’t betrayed her-

Mike.

—

Jonathan arrived in a flurry of cold air, clutching a satchel that he opened to reveal a bulky video camera. He took in the scene with wide eyes - Brenner slumped on the chair, Hopper sitting before him and wringing his hands, Joyce pacing behind him. She looked up as he came in.

“Did you see El?”

“Yeah, uh, she ran past me. What’s going on?”

Hopper jumped to his feet. “We have to go after her, it’s too dangerous for her to be out-“

“You’re the last person she wants to see right now!” Joyce interrupted. She could scarcely believe it, what he’d done - but then again she could believe it all too well, could imagine herself doing the same in some horrid parallel universe. She recoiled from that possibility, she shuddered and knew she’d do anything to avoid making that decision, but it was there inside her - to do something barbaric in the name of her son. 

Even that realisation - it was too much for her, and she hated Brenner for forcing it on her. Hated Hopper.

“I- um- I have to go after her-“ he stuttered abortively, scrubbing a hand over his beard. 

“You’ve done enough,” she said lowly, hating herself, hating him. He met her eyes. His face was stricken, so loaded with guilt it was painful to look at him. She dropped her gaze. 

“Uh- what- what happened?” Jonathan asked, and Joyce’s eyes snapped to him - she’d almost forgotten he was there. She thought about telling him the truth, telling him what Hopper had done - but something in her fought against it. She didn’t know how he’d react - and while she knew she might be able to forgive Hopper eventually, she wasn’t so sure about Jonathan. 

“I fucked up,” Hopper answered roughly, surprising her. “Fuck- Joyce- I have to go after El. I have to.”

She looked at him, really looked. He was agonised, mouth twisted in desperation, and she sighed. “I’m coming with you,” she said, and he looked poised to argue, but she cut him off before he could. “She won’t trust you alone, not now.”

Impossibly, his face fell further. She became aware that Brenner was watching them, an expression of almost glee on his face. Pointedly she ignored him. This had been his intention from the start, she knew - _divide and conquer,_ wasn’t that the adage? She was determined not to let this break them. 

Hands shaking only a little, she dug another smoke out of her pocket and lit it furiously. Then she moved past Hopper, to the door, and waited expectantly as he reached for a syringe to sedate Brenner. Before he could, however, the man looked directly at Joyce, eyes razor sharp. 

“You really trust him? With the safety of your family?”

She stared at him in loathing, but Hopper’s face was unnerved, anxious as the room awaited her response with bated silence. “Maybe he fucked up,” she said, barely audibly. Ostensibly this was addressed to Brenner, but her eyes were on Hop. “But he _is_ family.”

—

El stared out at the white trees. Everything was silent, and glittering, like nothing had happened. But everything had happened.

She’d been walking through the woods, head bowed against the cold, relying on that _feeling_ she had from seeing Mike in the dark place to find him. She stuck close to the road, so she wouldn’t lose her way, and luckily it was empty and quiet. She didn’t know what she would do if a van full of soldiers came upon her - but there were none in sight.

She looked up when a twig broke in front of her. A grey fox burst out of the trees. It didn’t look scared of her, like the animals had when she’d hid in the woods the winter after the Demogorgon. It looked angry, and wild. She thought of the dog in the power station, only the previous night, and backed away, afraid. The fox advanced, tensing as if to leap, but then with an unthinking jolt of her head it was on the ground with a _snap._

She breathed out shakily. There was something _wrong_ about the animal, like it wasn’t just starving, like it was sick. Like there was something dark and cloying clinging to it.

Then a car pulled up. She jumped, the fox forgotten, and focused her gaze in case she needed to use her powers again - but then Nancy stepped out and rushed towards her. “El!” she hissed, relief in her voice, and El wilted. She began to cry, the tears burning her eyes, and Nancy’s arms drew around her tight. 

“What happened?” the older girl asked softly. 

“Hopper- he- he gave me to Brenner. To save Will.”

Nancy moved back and they locked eyes. “When was this? Back in 1983?”

Hesitantly El nodded. 

“Look- I can’t speak for why he did it, but the way I see it - he’s been making up for that shitty decision ever since. He called us, got us all out looking for you - he’s almost frantic.”

El had looked away, even as the words carved a pathway into her heart. She couldn’t forgive him, not yet. And by Nancy’s expression she wasn’t entirely convinced either - but then again, El had never known the older girl not to speak her mind. 

So that left her here, in Nancy’s car (which she’d borrowed from Steve), drying her tears on her sleeve. Nancy had persuaded her to come back to the motel. She and Hopper had to talk about what happened, and if nothing else she had to stay safe. (At least, that was what Nancy said.)

“Is Mike okay?” El asked quietly.

Nancy glanced at her, then her eyes returned to the road. “He’s fine. He’s with the other kids - they’re all at Steve’s. We figured it was safer for them all to be together.”

El nodded. She could understand that. 

Then suddenly they were pulling up to the motel, its grimy exterior highlighted by the pristine snow. She bit her lip, unwilling to get out of the car and face them all. Hopper, whose guilty face would make her angry and heartbroken all at once. Joyce, whose exhaustion was a reminder that El hadn’t done enough to protect her, to protect all of them. (Brenner, who could still crawl under her skin so easily.) 

Nancy’s hand landed on hers, and she looked up into blue eyes that were warm and kind. “It’s okay,” the older girl said. “You don’t have to talk to him just yet. His car’s not here - that means they’re not back yet.”

El nodded, cheered by Mike’s sister’s presence. She was comforting in a different way to Joyce - Joyce was intense and loving, where Nancy was quiet and strong. El loved them both, but she was glad it was Nancy who’d found her.

She followed the older girl into the room - the room where Will was, not Brenner. Will and Jonathan were sitting on the sofabed, talking quietly, but they both stood up when the girls arrived. El left Nancy behind and went straight to Will, hugging him tight. 

“I don’t blame you,” she whispered, and he stared at her in confusion. He didn’t know, then. Hopper had hidden it from all of them. 

She meant what she said. She couldn’t blame Will, could never blame him - it would be like saying he asked the monster to take him in the first place. What they’d done to get him back - none of it was his fault. 

(Briefly El wondered why she valued her own life so highly, even placing it above Will’s. Maybe Hopper had been right, maybe she was expendable. Maybe she was being stupid and selfish.)

Then there was a sound behind her, the door opening, and she turned. Jonathan, Nancy, Will - they all cried out and she looked at them in bewilderment, because there was nothing there - just the wall, and the door, and someone marching through it-

Kali. Her sister.

She looked unchanged, her dark hair still swept to the side, her eyes still deep and searching. The others were cringing away, ducked on the floor, and there was blood on her lip that she reached to wipe away almost unconsciously.

El understood what had happened. “What are you making them see?” she whispered. The sight of her sister was both a welcome and a terrifying one - because while she had no doubt Kali wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her newfound family if she thought them a threat, there was the relief of seeing someone who would never, _ever,_ hand her over to Brenner.

“The ceiling caved in,” she replied, then strode forward and pulled El into a hug. El tensed in her arms, remembering how the older girl had played with her mind, but then the warmth of it got to her and she melted. “I’ve missed you, sister.”

“I missed you too,” El murmured into her jacket. It was big, and black, like the one she used to have, that she’d worn until it frayed. “Why are you here? How did you find me?”

Kali tapped her temple, eyes dancing. “We have a connection, remember?” Then she straightened up and took El’s hand. “How have you been?”

She nodded. “I- I’m okay,” she said, but her sister’s presence, asking how she was - it brought the betrayal of what Hopper had done home even further. Unbidden, tears gathered in her eyes.

“Hey, what happened?” Kali asked, moving closer. Her eyes were large, and warm, and full of concern. 

El shook her head. “Hopper- he- Papa-“

The older girl’s gaze sharpened. “Brenner?” Her grip on El’s hand tightened almost painfully. “Take me to him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really think the deal Hopper made to save Will is something that should be dealt/might well crop up again, so I thought it fitting to explore its consequences here. We’ve still got over ten chapters to go, so it can’t only be smooth sailing ;) 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think!  
> (And while you’re here, feel free to check out my other latest story, _say hello, wave goodbye_ listed on my profile !)


	18. All Circuits Are Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper discovers something alarming, and Joyce takes action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- warning for a pretty graphic description of a staged suicide
> 
> chapter title is from _twilight zone_ by golden earring.

Hopper slammed his fist against the wall, ignoring the way his knuckles exploded in pain. It felt gratifying, almost, like he deserved it. Maybe he did. 

Joyce was gone. She’d driven back to the motel in her own car when Nancy had radioed them - _it’s okay, I found her_ \- after staring at him with warning eyes. “Maybe it’s best if you give her a little time,” she’d said quietly, and he’d flinched as if she’d stabbed him. The warmth, the goodwill of that morning - it had all but evaporated. He understood why - of course he understood. Joyce was too kind, too maternal, to even contemplate making such a choice. 

Which was why he’d made it for her, and resolved never to let her know. He’d done what needed to be done, and it had worked out fine for everyone in the end.

(At least, that was what he kept on telling himself - it had certainly caught up with him now.)

He’d deluded himself into thinking he’d been sparing her, when really all he’d been doing was lying. How could they possibly build a strong, caring relationship if they weren’t honest with each other? If he wasn’t honest?

God, he didn’t deserve her.

And El? 

She might never forgive him. And she’d be perfectly within her rights not to. He’d spent so long keeping her safe (keeping her a hostage, in her eyes) only for him to look like some awful, awful hypocrite. _You are like Papa!_ Maybe he was.

And the worst thing-

The worst thing was that she’d think he didn’t love her. She’d think all the times he’d told her to eat her greens, ruffled her hair, bought her a new shirt because he thought she’d like the pattern- she’d think they were out of some pathetic moral obligation. Out of guilt.

And maybe it was, at first. When he’d seen her there, skinny and starving in the woods, he hadn’t taken her in just because he could. (He wasn’t so good a person as Joyce.) He’d seen how her face was bony and hollow, her cheekbones protruding unhealthily, and thought _I did this to her.wanted_ to. She wasn’t Sara. He knew that, he knew it as starkly as the difference between blonde and brunette. But having a kid to care for, to laugh with - it was nice. It made him feel whole again, where a piece of him had been torn out irrevocably. And, more than that, he _liked_ El. She was funny, and adorable, and whip-smart when she could get her words out. She made him smile.

And to think all that might be gone-

That he’d lost the right to be her _Dad-_

That he’d done such an awful thing to her in the first place-

He put his head in his hands and cried.

—

When Joyce arrived back at the motel, she immediately knew something had changed. She didn’t know why, precisely, only the hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end and the wind felt colder somehow, like something was wrong.

She dragged herself out of her little Pinto - she still felt groggy, and achy all over - and hurried to the door. When she’d opened it after fumbling with the keys, Jonathan ran to her with Nancy and Will at his heels.

“Mom, thank God, we were trying to radio everyone but we couldn’t get through-“

“What happened?” she asked a little breathlessly, her chest already feeling tight with alarm.

“It’s El- and Brenner- they’re gone-“

Her heart stuttered. “Gone? Gone how?”

“I don’t know-“ Jonathan started, as Will cried, “The ceiling collapsed!”

Joyce blinked, staring up at the ceiling. It was the same smooth, dingy white as before. Her thoughts raced - maybe Will was making it up, maybe he was seeing things - but then Nancy stepped forward.

“We all saw it,” she said, and Joyce’s breath hitched. “Someone was screwing with us.”

“Another number,” she whispered, a hand flying to her mouth. It had to be. _Fuck._ What were they going to do? Brenner was gone, El was gone. Who had taken them? Did Brenner have another number still alive, still working with him? Had they taken El back? Was it all for nothing?

Her ears were ringing. Jonathan seemed to be moving towards her from the end of a long, blurry tunnel, his lips forming slow words she couldn’t hear. She could feel the blood pounding in her head, her chest rising and falling fast - too fast. The panic crawled up her throat.

She had the wherewithal to stumble past the kids, flinching away from Jonathan’s reaching hands, and she locked herself in the shitty green bathroom. God, this was not the time for this to happen - but she’d never been in control of when this happened. She remembered when Will was missing, when Jonathan had told her - no, practically screamed it at her - _this is not an okay time for you to shut down_. Like it was a choice. Like she wanted to.

Joyce moved to the sink, clutching its sides with shaking hands. She looked at herself in the mirror, her flushed cheeks and wide eyes, and cursed this _shit_. If only she could- could get past this, the fear. The panic that made her chest hurt. Made her lungs ache with every shallow breath.

She brought her hand to her mouth as if she could somehow stifle the harshness of her breathing. Bit down to stop herself from sobbing. Felt a sting of pain through the numb, dizzy haze. Hot copper flooded her mouth, and she realised she’d broken skin. 

The pain was grounding, and with an effort she regained control of herself. She measured her breaths - in, out, in, out. _Fuck._ The light above the mirror was flickering, worse than before, matching the flutter of her chest. She splashed her face with water. Tried to chase the fear out of her expression. 

So much had happened, in so little time, and now El was gone. El was _gone._

Hopper was in no fit state to lead them, not now, and whether they could trust him again-

Whether _she_ could trust him again-

So it was up to her. 

She swallowed the lump in her throat and went back out to the bedroom, reaching for a cigarette automatically and lighting it with tense fingers.

“Mom- are you okay?” Jonathan was hovering, as was his way. He’d never really known what to do when she had the attacks - and she supposed it was just as well. Let him be a kid at least in that respect.

“I’m fine,” she said. Her voice sounded more confident than she felt, but Will at least looked reassured. “You said the radio isn’t working?”

Nancy nodded. “No one’s responding- we tried the phone, but it’s dead-“

“You- you tried the phone? You realise how dangerous that is?” She tried to keep the hysteria out of her voice. 

“Look, we didn’t know what else to do, okay?” Jonathan said. “You were all out- and we couldn’t leave Will-“ 

Joyce nodded and cut him off. “Look, do you have any idea where they went? Any idea at all?”

Both Nancy and Jonathan looked at a loss, but then Will stepped forward. “I think I can find El.”

“Find her? Find her how?”

“Like she found you last night, in the dark place.” Will’s voice was quiet, and sure. It went against her every fibre, made her want to scream, but she knew this was their only option - and her son’s quiet confidence was winning her over. He’d always been strong. Stronger than her - last year, when that _thing_ had taken over him, he’d kept on fighting. He hadn’t given up. 

She stared at him, hard. “Are you sure you can do it? And you’ll be safe?”

Will didn’t flinch. “I can do it.”

As she took a harsh drag of her cigarette, he closed his eyes. And they waited.

—

When his radio crackled to life, at first Hopper paid it no mind. He was too wrapped up in his own misery, his own selfish guilt - but Powell wouldn’t shut up, so finally he picked up.

“Hopper,” he said, a little roughly.

“Hey, Chief, we got a situation down at the station. You’re gonna want to see this.”

When he arrived, Powell brought him down the corridor with a grave, grim frown. “I’m warning you, Chief, it’s bad.”

And it was bad.

There was blood everywhere. It collected in a scarlet pool, gleaming dark and sinister on the floor of the cell. _Who’s gonna clean all that up?_ Hopper thought absently, while his mind struggled to catch up with the sight.

Lonnie. Dead.

The source of the blood was long, ragged cuts splayed bright across each wrist. Lonnie’s face was slack and pale, almost surprised, now forever unshaven. Hopper stared at him for a moment, looked away, then his gaze was drawn back almost unwillingly.

Lonnie, dead? It didn’t feel real. Hopper didn’t know what to think - because on the one hand, he hated the guy, hated his guts, but on the other-

This could only be the Lab. The fucking Lab, messing in shit that was none of its business. Lonnie would never kill himself, he’d never give Hopper that satisfaction - never give _Joyce_ that satisfaction. Joyce, whom he’d called crazy all along.

How would Hopper tell her? _Hey, your hated ex and the father of your children has been brutally murdered by the people who abducted and experimented on you._ Jesus. Their lives were becoming increasingly like a circus.

How would she react? Would she be relieved? Sad? She must have loved him at some point, as much as it made Hopper burn. Loved him enough to have two kids with him. Even if he did make a shitty co-parent, and a shittier husband. 

_God._

Hopper ran a hand over his beard. “So, uh, what’ve we got?”

Powell sighed. “Looks like he snuck a knife in when we arrested him. You gotta be real depressed to do somethin’ like that, huh?”

“Huh, yeah,” Hopper said, because he couldn’t tell them the truth. The government people were closing in, scorched-earth style - anyone who knew anything was at risk. “I- uh, I gotta use the phone.”

He made it to his office and shut the door firmly, before going to the phone. He’d dialled Owen’s number before he noticed anything was wrong - and nothing happened.

“Hey, Flo?” he called. “Is your phone working?”

A moment later she replied in the negative.

He hurried out into the street, a dark suspicion forming in his mind. He went straight into the bar opposite, hoping against hope he was wrong.

“Hey,” he said to the barman, who was wiping a rather grimy glass with an expression of boredom. “Can I use your phone?”

The man shrugged. He gestured to it, just sitting atop the bar, and Hopper picked it up with trepidation.

No dial tone.

The phones were dead. Hawkins was cut off.

Hopper felt cold.

—

When Will opened his eyes again, there was blood streaming from his nose. Joyce flinched at the sight. It was a gruesome, stark reminder of the _shit_ she’d passed on to her sons - perhaps more to Will than to Jonathan, because Will was born after Brenner had her, after she became _006._ Not that she knew how any of this worked.

God, that was the problem, wasn’t it? They were all in the dark about far too much. How were they supposed to defend themselves, to fight back, when they didn’t know who they were fighting? Or why?

“Did you find her?” Nancy asked.

Will nodded. “She’s at this- this warehouse, I think. I think they were uptown, nearer to Mike’s. Where the power lines are.”

He swayed on his feet. Both Joyce and Jonathan moved to catch him, Jonathan getting there first and helping him into a chair. She knelt before him.

“Hey, sweetie, you’ve done great, you’ve done so great.” He gave her a shaky smile. Reassured, she stood up. “Okay, I’m gonna go find them, you keep trying Hopper-“

“You can’t go alone-“ Jonathan started.

“It’s not safe,” Joyce said. “You both stay here with Will and I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She turned to Nancy. “Do you- do you have a gun I can borrow?”

The girl nodded, confirming what she’d previously only suspected. She brought it out from her waistband, but didn’t hand it over. “Do you even know how to use this?”

Joyce stared at her. “Look, we don’t have time for this-“

“You’re gonna get yourself killed,” Nancy said quietly. Her tone was harsh, but her eyes were not unkind. “What happens to El if they get you too? What happens to Will?”

Joyce clenched her jaw. The girl had a point, a point she couldn’t ignore. She didn’t know how to use the gun - she’d never tried - and if it was Brenner’s people, those men with machine guns, she’d be lucky to get out alive. “What do you suggest, then?”

“I’ll come with you.” 

Jonathan’s face tightened. “No, Nancy-“

She turned to him, scowling. “Why? Why not? I’m a damn good shot, you know that, and your mom needs the help-“

“Fine,” Joyce interrupted, surprising even herself. “We’re running out of time, we’ve gotta get going.”

“Mom-“

“Jonathan, leave it. Keep Will safe, okay? We’ll be back soon. Keep trying the radio.”

She hugged Will tight, her shoulders tense. Her breaths were still shaky and shallow, but there was resolve in her spine. They would find El. They would get her and Brenner back. Then they would end this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, love you and let me know what you think! xx


	19. The Daughters of the Lab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce and Nancy meet a familiar face.

“This is it, right? This has gotta be it.”

Nancy’s voice was quiet with trepidation. The warehouse looked deserted, tucked in next to a towering pylon. They’d found it on the map, just a grey box a few miles from the Wheelers’, and Nancy had directed while Joyce drove. And now they were here, and they had no idea what they were walking into. 

It could be a trap, something devised by Brenners’ people to catch the rest of them - but maybe it wasn’t, maybe this number had gone rogue like El had. Maybe Joyce could work out a deal. 

She turned the engine off and glanced at Nancy.

“Are you ready?” she asked. The girl’s stare was fixed, and for a moment Joyce regretted letting her come - she was just a kid. Just a kid, and yet she turned to her with fiery eyes. 

“I’m ready,” Nancy replied, and they left the car.

Joyce’s hands felt empty without a weapon, and she let Nancy take the lead with her gun (even as she frowned at the thought of having put a gun in a teenager’s hands). The warehouse, when they’d cranked the door open and slipped inside, was huge and dark and _empty._

There was nothing there, nothing at all. It was a huge, cavernous space, shadowy and bare. She searched it desperately with her gaze. This couldn’t be it, they had to be here-

“No, this has to be it,” she whispered, half to herself. 

Nancy stepped forward, footsteps echoing in the massive space. She had a look of concentration, a frown forming, like she was thinking hard.

“What? What is it?”

“Nothing, I just-“ The girl turned to look at her. “It’s warm in here. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

Joyce stared at her. Yeah, it was warm, did that matter? What mattered was they were wrong, and they had to find El before it was too late, because they were running out of time-

There was a sound. 

Nothing more than a whisper, maybe a footfall, but in the giant space it was thunderous. She whipped around- but then there was a cold pressure pressed to the back of her head and she stiffened. The warehouse was no longer empty - there was a tatty old van, now, and a circle of chairs, and an electric heater, and a bare mattress - but all she could focus on was the gun aimed at her head. The bullet that could tear through flesh and bone and nerve like melted butter.

“Turn around, nice and slow, and put your hands where I can see ‘em.”

Joyce turned. 

It was a man, much taller than her, with a towering pink mohican and tattoos creeping up his neck. He held the gun level, like someone who knew how to use it and had done so before. 

“Well, what’ve we got here? Who the fuck are you?”

Nancy was cornered by a woman with a tight afro and dark skin who was holding a knife to her throat. As Joyce watched, however, she stamped hard on the woman’s foot and twisted out of her reach, pressing the gun to her temple. She looked at the man holding Joyce with cool composure. “Let her go or I shoot your friend.”

The woman’s throat dipped as she swallowed, anxiety plain in her eyes. (Clearly they hadn’t accounted for Nancy being more than just a teenage girl.)

“Looks like we’re at an impasse.” The man grinned. “Are you chicken? ‘Cause I’m no chicken.”

“We- we mean no harm, we’re just looking for someone,” Joyce tried, doing her best to keep her voice even. 

“Huh, heard that one before.” He moved the gun, waving it closer to her face. She flinched, and her hands dropped. “Hey! Show me your hands or I’ll shoot you right here.”

“No!” 

Both Joyce and the man whipped around in surprise at the voice, and El emerged from the darkness. She looked unharmed, her face tear-stained but _angry,_ and she raised her hand in the same way someone else would raise a gun. 

“Get away from her,” she said.

“El,” Joyce whispered, relief flooding her veins, the gun forgotten. “Thank god.”

“El?” That was a new voice, a cynical one, with a marked accent. “Her name is Jane.”

Stepping forward to stand beside El was a girl - she looked older than Nancy, but still just a girl - with dark skin and dark hair, a girl Joyce recognised with a jolt. 

“Eight?” she said quietly, stepping forward. The girl stepped back, alarm crossing her face.

“Who are you? How do you- Who are you?”

“I’m Six,” she whispered, the first time she’d ever admitted it aloud. There was a sense of relief in it, almost - like the release of a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. 

Eight lunged forward and grabbed her wrist in a sharp, deft movement. Joyce let her take it.

“Axel, blacklight,” the girl ordered, and the man moved away from Joyce reluctantly. She breathed a sigh of relief at the removal of the gun. He returned with a strange, bulky torch that Eight grabbed, and shone on the little skin that wasn’t plastered in band aids-

And there it was. 006. Shining in eerie blue under the UV glare. 006, etched into her skin like she was property.

Nancy let out a gasp, but the girl’s gaze didn’t leave Joyce’s. “Prove it,” she said, voice low and secret.

“What?” 

“Prove it,” she repeated. “Prove you’re one of us.”

Joyce clenched her jaw. If there was ever a time for her powers - such as they were - to work, it was now. Her eyes found a spot above them in the darkness shrouding the roof, and she thought of _light._

A point of light appeared, nothing more than the wick of a candle or the ember of a cigarette lit in the dark - but she focused on it, made it grow into a warm stream that glowed like sunlight. 

Eight was staring up at it, face cast in something unreadable, and Joyce swayed. The weakness that flooded her limbs was not unexpected, but she found herself cursing it as her head swam. Then El was beside her, holding her up. 

“Thank god you’re okay,” she whispered into the girl’s thick hair. “We were so worried.”

Joyce searched her pockets for a tissue to soak up the blood dripping from her nose. Then a hand offered her one and she looked up to see Eight, eyes glimmering. “Habit,” she said wryly, then her face became serious again. “You know Jane?” There was still wariness in her expression.

“She-“ Joyce started, then fell silent. How could she explain - how could she _possibly_ explain - how the family had come together? How El was as much her child as Jonathan and Will were? “She saved my son’s life.”

“Jane? Is this true?” 

El looked between them, tension in her posture. “Yes,” she said finally, decisively. “Joyce is my new Mom.”

Eight looked even more suspicious, if that was possible. “Joyce,” she said, as if testing out the name. After a moment, she extended a hand. “Kali. This is Axel, and Mick.” 

Joyce glanced at them a little uneasily. There was something off about this girl, something sharp and brittle - she was dangerous, that much was clear. 

Nancy had released Mick, though she kept the gun clutched in her hand. Her expression was tight. “This is Nancy- she’s a friend,” Joyce said.

“Is she?” Mick muttered, glaring daggers. 

“So your powers - you can create light?” 

Joyce nodded. “I- I’m still working it out,” she said, uncomfortable under Kali’s harsh stare. “And you- you can make people see things?”

Kali nodded, a sharp, brisk movement of her head up and down. 

This was all too much. Joyce scanned the warehouse, no longer an empty space, but there was no sign of Brenner. She took El’s arm, then, and guided her away from the others, leaning her face close to hers and speaking quietly.

“What happened? Where’s Brenner?”

El looked away. “I- I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left, but after what Dad did-“ Her eyes, large and brown and sad, met Joyce’s. “I couldn’t trust him with this. I thought my sister could help.”

“Oh, sweetie-“ She pulled the girl into a hug. She was just a kid, a kid who kept trying to have a family only to have it torn away, again and again. “I don’t blame you, of course I don’t - but I need to know where Brenner is.”

“You- you won’t give him back, will you? You won’t let him go?” El’s voice was small and broken.

“He’s gonna pay for what he did, El.” Joyce injected every ounce of her conviction into her tone, looking deep into the girl’s eyes. “I promise. He’s never going to hurt you ever again.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “He’s in their van, he hasn’t woken up yet.”

“Okay, good, that’s good.” Joyce ran a hand through her hair. “Stick close to Nancy, okay?” Then she walked back over to the others. “You took Brenner.” It wasn’t a question, and she saw their faces shift at her flat tone.

Kali tilted up her chin. “Your arms - he did that to you?”

Self consciously Joyce rubbed her sleeves, the band-aids flexing on her skin. She nodded.

“Then you’ll understand what I want with him. What we want,” she added, looking straight at El. 

“You don’t get it- if we kill him, this doesn’t stop-“

Kali raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms. “What doesn’t stop?”

“The Lab- what they’ve done-“

“Why should that concern me? The only thing I want from him is his death. As slow and painful as possible.”

Nancy stepped forward, face incredulous. “Do you have any idea how _selfish_ that is? They- they killed my friend, they took Joyce’s son, they’re not gonna stop hurting people.”

“How do I know you’re not working with them?” Kali returned, a challenge in her eyes.

“ _What?_ You think- you think I’d go anywhere near those- those monsters? After what they’ve done?” Joyce felt bile rise in her throat at the thought. “I want justice just as much as you. But this isn’t the way.”

“What’s your way?” 

“A taped confession. We edit it to protect ourselves, but we get what they did out there and we _stop this.”_

Kali laughed, a bitter sound that echoed in the massive space. “That’s incredibly naïve. You think the experiments will stop? You think picket-fence America will protest anything that sits under the label ‘national security’? There’s no way to stop them. So we make do by taking revenge.”

Joyce felt helpless. Kali seemed impossible to convince. And under it all, she was giving voice to the very fears lodged in her chest. What if it didn’t work? What if the woman was right, and this would all come to nothing? 

Then there was movement on her left and Nancy stepped forward, fire in her eyes and the set of her shoulders. “What about the weather?” 

Joyce blinked. The others looked similarly confused.

“The weather - it’s snowing. In Indiana. At the end of April. Don’t you find that weird?”

Kali shrugged. “What concern is the weather of mine?”

“And the animals,” El said quietly. Her eyes were shadowed, and Joyce shuddered at the memory of the previous night. It was blurred and hazy, but what she could recall- it was the opposite of normal. Like something out of Jonathan’s horror movies.

Nancy nodded. “This is _all_ of our concerns. The last time weird shit went down in Hawkins the world nearly ended - and you can bet Brenner knows something about it.”

“The world nearly ended? Is that a joke, Twiggy?” Axel sneered. Nancy ignored him - her gaze, intent and serious, was fixed on Kali.

“You didn’t tell her about the Upside Down?” Joyce asked El softly. The girl shook her head.

Kali looked ill at ease for the first time. “The Upside Down? What does that mean?”

So they told her. Nancy carried the story for the most part, Joyce supplying the bits she wasn’t so sure of - El was mostly silent, her expression grave. Kali seemed genuinely shocked, even horrified, while Axel kept whistling in disbelief and Mick stood quietly, arms crossed. 

“So we got the monster out of Will, and El closed the gate,” Joyce finished, voice a little shaky. “And now it might be happening again.”

Kali was silent, her eyes unreadable.

“That makes a fuckton of sense,” Axel said, and Joyce looked at him in surprise. “Hey, Kali, isn’t that like what your weird friend told us?” He glanced at Mick.

“What friend?” she asked, stepping forward. If this was someone who knew something - another number, even - she had to know. Maybe they could help.

Kali’s eyes narrowed. “If what you say is true-“

“It is,” Nancy interrupted.

“If what you say is true, then all the more reason to want Brenner dead. He took your friend away from you,” she looked at Joyce, “your son,” then finally her gaze rested on El, “our _childhoods._ If this- this shadow monster is coming back, you can defeat it on your own. You have done so before.”

“Not without great cost.” Joyce was silent for a moment, letting Kali think - because there was hesitation in the girl’s demeanour. She was close to being convinced.

“You really trust her?” she asked El softly.

El nodded. 

“Fine,” Kali said. She looked at Mick, then, and they seemed to have a silent conversation - then she waved a hand.

And the woman who used to be Mick, the woman who used to be dark skinned and healthy and young, was no more. Her hair, her skin melted away to reveal a woman a little older than Joyce, with blonde hair and shadows carved into her face-

But Joyce knew who she was. Joyce would know her anywhere, now her memories were returning. She’d once been ginger, and had stood a lot straighter, her gaze colder where now it was just weary - but it was her.

“Two,” she gasped. Her heart thudded in her chest.

Two smiled bitterly. “I’ve not been Two in a long while, Six.”

“Two?” El whispered breathlessly. Her eyes darted to meet Joyce’s. “The one you told me about?”

Joyce couldn’t look at her, couldn’t tear her eyes away from Two’s. “You- you died, I saw you die-“ 

“I did what I had to do to get out. Just as any of us did.”

Two didn’t look like she had in the Lab, back in 1970. She looked free, even as her shoulders were bowed. She let out a cough that hastened and continued into a hacking fit, and she pressed a handkerchief to her mouth that came away bloody.

El flinched at the sound. Joyce’s breaths shook and she struggled to regulate them, her eyes never leaving Two’s.

“You- and Brenner-“ she started, but then she stopped, because she’d heard something. Something outside. The wheels of a car, or a truck. An engine shutting off. Voices. The tread of heavy boots.

Then the heavy door opened with a clang. A stream of light fell on Joyce, who was closest to the entrance, and then the soldiers were coming towards her and her heart was sinking because they’d found them, they’d take El and Brenner back and all was lost-

But as she looked into the darkness, where El and Kali and Nancy and Axel and Two had been, there was only empty space. The van was gone, and the heater and the chairs. Everything was as it had been.

A soldier cuffed her roughly, jarring her already tender wrists. Before he dragged her away, though, she stared into the dark with desperate eyes. _Keep them safe_ , she mouthed at the empty space where Kali had been. Keep El safe, keep Nancy safe, keep Brenner safe so they could take back what’s theirs. Keep Two safe, so they could finally get to the bottom of this. Keep herself safe, as a fellow number. A sister, or a daughter. Some kind of twisted family.

She was almost smiling as they shoved her into the truck, for the second time in twenty-four hours. Because this wasn’t over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know if you’re still here! love you all xxx


	20. The Empire Strikes Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan, Hop, and Joyce are in a sticky situation, and familiar faces abound.

Jonathan stared at the wall. It was covered in posters, carefully made drawings by pre-teens in science class. Ridiculous, almost, to be looking at posters about the water cycle in this situation.

The cuffs were tight on his wrists. He’d tried to squirm out of them, even though he knew it wouldn’t work. He had to try.

They’d come for them with guns and cold faces, eyes that were beyond the reach of reason or begging. They’d even cuffed Will - cuffed _Will,_ a shaky fourteen-year-old. Dragged them out together, as Jonathan fought them every step. Finally one man, who had an air of authority, had cocked his revolver and aimed it at his head. “Don’t make too much trouble for us,” he said. “Don’t want the kid to get hurt.”

Will had swallowed painfully and Jonathan had quieted, ice racing through his veins. He would bide his time, he decided. Get them out when the soldiers weren’t watching. Save himself and his brother and pray they hadn’t got his mom and Nancy too.

But they’d separated them, brought them to the middle school for some reason and taken them to different classrooms. And now Jonathan was sitting here at a loss, fear in his gut. Fear that maybe they’d got Will hooked up to some machine, experimenting on him even now-

(He’d never been able to go to the appointments with Will, at the Lab - he’d felt sick whenever he thought about it.)

Jonathan recalled his eighteenth birthday, only a few months ago. Will had been there, and Mom, and Nancy, and Steve - El and Hopper had arrived halfway through dinner, faces all apologetic, but the way Mom lit up at their arrival-

It was a nice evening. They’d all laughed together, like a family, and had cake. (Cake baked by Nancy, because none of them could cook for shit.) After, when Hopper had taken El home, Steve had driven off, and Will had gone to bed, Joyce gave him and Nancy each a beer and told them to be sensible with a knowing smile. 

(His dad- Lonnie hadn’t been there, of course. He hadn’t been invited, but that didn’t stop the old foolish hope rising pitifully in Jonathan’s chest. Like he was a kid again, begging his father to love him even as all he got were harsh words and the occasional slap. Lonnie had treated Mom worse, and Will wasn’t so able to stand up for himself - but that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt. At the end of the day, he was glad Lonnie wasn’t there. He’d only ruin it.)

Only a few weeks ago-

Only a few weeks ago, and now he was here. 

Suddenly there was movement outside in the corridor, the sound of hurried footsteps, and his head jerked up. “Hey!” he yelled. “Let me go!”

There was silence. Then the sound of a voice, hoarse and desperate, a voice he’d recognise anywhere.

“Let me go, you assholes! Get the hell off of me! I swear to God-“ His mom was angry, defiant. He felt relieved, even as his stomach dropped. She was here - but she hadn’t stopped fighting.

“Mom!” he shouted, as loud as he could. 

“Jonathan!” she called back. “Jonathan- it’s okay - get _off_ me! Why the fuck have you got my boys? Let them go - _Jonathan-“_

Her voice died as she was dragged past the room and he was left in silence once more. “Mom!” he tried desperately, repeatedly, until his shouts were ragged and hoarse. God, what the hell did they want? 

He tried the cuffs again. And again, they didn’t give. 

The room was utterly silent now. Absently he reflected that the school was near the main road - there should at least be the sound of traffic - but he dismissed the thought. What did that matter? He closed his eyes in despair.

And when he opened them, everything was dark.

He was alone. The floor had become a mirrored pool that rippled at his feet, the space endless and still. There was nothing around him. Only the black.

“Mom?” he called, uncertainty making his heart race. “Will? Nancy?”

The handcuffs were gone. He brought his hands up to his face in disbelief - then he gasped, because El was standing before him in the empty black.

“Jonathan?” she whispered.

“El- what-”

“You can see me?” she asked, wonder on her face. 

He nodded. “What’s happening? Where are we?”

“We’re talking in our minds, in the dark place, like me and Will can,” she said, directing her intense gaze at him. She still unnerved him, sometimes. She was powerful and mysterious, an unknown - he’d been unsure of what she might do to his family, at first. But she’d been nothing but caring, and fiercely protective - like she really cared. Like she’d never hurt them. “You must be different too,” she said. He didn’t have time to unpack that, though the words sent alarm racing through him - he had to know what was going on.

“What- are you okay? They didn’t get you?”

She nodded. “I’m okay. Joyce- she and Nancy found us, but then the bad men came and took her-“

“Is Nancy okay?” Jonathan’s voice trembled slightly. Now that he knew his mom had been captured, he was terrified they’d got Nancy too-

“She’s with us,” El said. Her tone was confident, assured. “We’re coming.”

Jonathan swallowed. El was small, slight of build, and the way her hair gathered around her face made her look childish and innocent - but there was strength in the way she stood. Defiance in the set of her features. This wasn’t over, Jonathan knew. 

“Thank you,” he said. He meant every syllable.

—

“Okay, it’s time for someone to tell me what the hell is going on.”

Hopper glared at the soldiers, using the advantage his height gave him to tower over many of them. They’d brought him here, to the middle school gym - the very same place they’d set up the kiddie pool, when El had helped them the first time - and he’d come willingly. Without a fight. Because there were too many of them to run from, and if they’d cut Hawkins off-

That could only mean something bad. And the fact that they were using the middle school as a base, instead of the power station or the empty husk of Hawkins Lab - he had a feeling these were a different breed to Brenner’s people. That they had a different goal in mind.

The gym, he saw as they entered it, was being set up with tables and computers, a command center, if ever he saw one. And right there in the middle of it was a man he recognised with a jolt.

“Owens,” he said. The man turned around, a smile laced with what could have been guilt appearing on his face. 

“Chief,” he greeted, walking over and extending a hand. Hopper didn’t take it.

“What the hell is this?” he asked lowly instead. “I thought you were done with Hawkins.”

Owens‘ eyes dimmed a little. “Well, they needed someone who knew the area, so here I am. Clearing up the mess again, huh?”

“The mess? What exactly is going on here?”

Owens sighed and rubbed his temples. “Listen, the whole thing with Brenner? Apparently he’s been on thin ice for a while. He went completely off-book. Abducting Joyce Byers - that was the final straw. The higher-ups have decided to pull the plug. Only problem is, he’s been messing around with dimensions again, causing this whole thing with the weather. Hawkins is under cordon until we can work out how to turn the snow machine off, so to speak.”

Hopper stared at him. Owens, showing up here with what seemed like answers - it felt too easy. Too simple. No way did the government care if Brenner abducted Joyce - they authorised the experiments in the first place, didn’t they?

“What about Joyce? And-“ he lowered his voice “-Jane? Where the hell do they fit in?”

“Brenner’s projects are finished. The numbers- the files are being archived, it’s all over.” There was something in Owens’ expression, something Hopper couldn’t read. He elected to ignore it for now.

“What’s the deal with the phones?”

“Ah, yes. We had to establish a stable perimeter around Hawkins, including cutting off all communications with the outside world. Granted, it’s a little _Midwich Cuckoos,_ but it’s for your own safety. Only temporary, of course.”

Hopper wasn’t sure he liked what he was hearing. They were completely at the mercy of these people - and if a stable perimeter was enforced, there was no escape. They were trapped. 

He hoped Joyce and El, along with Jonathan and Will, were safe back at the motel. Hoped they were smart enough to stay put.

“We’d like to involve you as much as we can, Chief - this is your town, after all. Have you noticed anything strange over the past few weeks?”

Huh. Too much to count. 

“Well, aside from the snow, there’s been weird shit going on with dogs- like they’re going rabid.” He shuddered at the memory of that beast in the corridor of the power station, only the previous night. It felt like a lifetime ago. 

“Yes, we’ve encountered something similar. We’ve got someone analysing one now.”

“Why have you set up here? Instead of up at Brenner’s place? Can’t imagine you can do much quality analysis in a middle school science lab.”

“You’d be surprised what we can do.” Owens stopped and looked at him. “Look, Jim, I’m gonna be frank with you,” he said, steering him away from the tables towards the back of the hall. “This not a purely scientific operation. We’ve got a massive military presence to contend with, both in Hawkins and waiting just outside it as backup. It isn’t all about the science. The higher-ups - they want to finish this. By any means necessary. I’m trying to hold the trigger-happy guys back, but Hawkins is basically under martial law. The science- it’s secondary.”

Hopper frowned. That- that was not good news. Martial law meant the suspension of the right to a fair trial. Meant they could arrest you for breathing. And Owens wasn’t a military man - so he couldn’t be in charge here. And as suspicious as Hopper felt right now, at least Owens was a known entity. Some bloodthirsty commander, like the ones Hopper had known in ‘Nam, would be infinitely more dangerous.

“That what happened to Lonnie? The trigger-happy guys?” He let the edge sharpen his voice. 

“Lonnie- Lonnie Byers? Joyce’s ex? What happened?”

Hopper raised his eyebrows. “Found him in lock-up this morning. Someone did a damn convincing job of making it look like he slit his wrists.”

Owens looked shocked, genuine surprise widening his eyes. “Jesus. Look, that wasn’t us. We moved in early hours of this morning and- well- Lonnie Byers isn’t exactly our biggest priority.”

Hopper believed him. Which meant that Brenner’s people had done it - and that they were still out there, still trying to scorch the earth. 

“Now, Jim, this is the moment when I ask you to trust me. And I know it’s a big ask, but I’d like to believe we have an understanding - right, Chief?”

Owens’ smile was amicable. Hopper wasn’t sure he liked where this was going, however. The doctor was making a labored effort to get him on side, and there was one thing he hadn’t asked about yet-

“I need you to tell me where Brenner is.”

There it was.

—

The cuffs, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, were tight and cold on her wrists. Her wrists, which had already been rubbed raw. 

Joyce stared straight ahead, gaze fixed. She didn’t have the energy to scream, to demand to be released. She would wait and see what they wanted now, and hope they weren’t so desperate for it as Brenner had been. 

They’d dumped her in some classroom, with bright posters on the walls and desks her children had sat at. The absurdity of this-

And the fact that her boys were here too, that they’d got her _boys._ That Will and Jonathan were in so much danger, right now, and there was nothing she could do-

And El was in the wind with Eight, whom Joyce wasn’t so sure she could trust. At least Nancy was with them. Nancy was smart, and sensible. 

And then there was Hopper. He didn’t even know Brenner was gone, he’d go to the motel to find it deserted- if the soldiers hadn’t got him already. _God._

Joyce swallowed the lump of fear that rose in her throat and clenched her fists. She would stay strong, for her boys. She would find some way out of this mess.

Then the door opened. The man who walked in was short, dark-haired, unassuming. He was wearing a suit, rather than army fatigues, and looked more like a desk worker than a soldier-

But when he met her gaze, she felt cold, for no apparent reason. His eyes were dark - though that wasn’t exactly abnormal - and she struggled to maintain the contact. A shudder passed through her. 

“Joyce Byers,” he said, like he was testing the way the syllables settled on his tongue. 

“Who are you?” she asked, not letting her composure drop.

He gave an elusive half-smile. It looked more like a grimace, and entirely wrong on his face. “Irrelevant. I’m much more interested in you.”

He pulled up a chair and sat facing her. His gaze was level with hers, but she felt like he was looming over her. “Me?” Her voice was no more than a whisper.

“You. Or rather, those you know. One of my people.”

“You want Brenner?” She should have expected this, of course she should have. They wanted their leader back.

“Brenner?” The man’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “He’s of no consequence. I want the girl.”

Eleven. He wanted Eleven.

What did he mean by ‘one of my people’? Was that just because she was a test subject? Or was there something more to it?

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Joyce bluffed. 

“Oh, but you do. I remember it. Your boy- he thought about her a lot.”

There was a cold suspicion creeping up her spine. The man’s tone was empty and cold, like the tug of an icy wind. Like the brush of tendrils of shadow when they were torn from her son’s throat. 

“Where is she, Joyce? I need her.” He leaned closer and she flinched back. “ _I need her.”_

“Go to hell,” she said, because fear was giving way to anger. She wouldn’t give El up, not to anyone, but especially not to him. _Him._

There was a moment of silence. He regarded her, shadowy eyes searching. Then he stood up. “Maybe this will change your mind,” he said, leaving the room.

When he returned, he had Will in tow. Her son was white-faced and trembling, flinching away from the man’s iron grip on his arm. So fixated was her gaze on Will’s terrified face that she almost missed the worst part-

The knife held to her boy’s throat. 

“Tell me. Where’s the girl?”

“Mom!” Will gasped, staring at her pleadingly. There was age-old horror in his eyes, the same horror that had taken residence there last October. “Mom- it’s him! It’s _Him!”_

She’d been right.

Standing before her, in some poor soul’s body, was the Mind Flayer itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all your kind comments!! the chapter writing has been on hold for a few weeks but i started up again the other day and i’m still about four chapters ahead. 
> 
> — chapter title is of course a reference to star wars.  
> — the midwick cuckoos is a sci fi novel by john wyndam published in 1957 in which aliens invade a sleepy english village and impose a sort of cordon.
> 
> you knew we couldn’t have a stranger things fic without both brenner and the mind flayer, come on. let me know your thoughts!!


	21. The Spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper makes a deal, and Joyce discovers hidden strength.

“What do you want with him - Brenner?” Hopper’s gaze didn’t leave Owens’. The doctor still hadn’t dropped the act - the concerned, well-meaning facade. But Brenner was their objective, and these government types - Hopper knew firsthand how far they’d go.

“Look, everything he’s done - he’s caused a lot of embarrassment. The higher-ups want him out of the picture, quickly. Put an end to the whole debacle.”

“‘Those people are all gone’, isn’t that what you told me last year? How in the hell did Brenner get to continue this shit again?”

Owens sighed. “Beats me. Reagan- the Reagan administration, it’s all very into this sort of thing. Washington may be all lovey-dovey with the Reds above board, but behind closed doors people are scared. When my report landed on Reagan’s desk, his first question was _have the Ruskies discovered this yet._ Then he sent Brenner off to make weapons out of it, so they don’t do it first.”

“Weapons?” Images were flashing behind Hopper’s eyes - people screaming inhumanly, the smell of burning flesh. The devastation caused by Agent Orange and napalm, magnified a thousandfold. 

“Oh, he’s not been very successful. He’s only managed to cause some sort of contamination across Hawkins - we’re trying to find the source.”

_Only._ Snow, rabid dogs - god knew what else was coming. Hopper knew better than to underestimate the Upside Down, after everything that had happened. Where Joyce fit into this, he didn’t know - only it couldn’t be a coincidence, the emergence of her powers happening now. 

A sudden, overwhelming rush of fear for her came over him then, a panicked desire to make sure she was safe. Make sure the soldiers hadn’t found her - because even if he could trust Owens, he wasn’t sure about the rest of them. 

He had to finish this, though. Get all he could from Owens, then find some excuse to go back to the motel and check on them - check on all of them, El and Will and Jonathan too.

“So, what, you’re gonna hold some sort of trial? Enforced retirement? Or are you gonna take him to some blacksite and put a bullet in his brain?”

Owen’s stare didn’t waver. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Chief. He’s looking at something like that.”

“Fine by me,” Hopper said. “I gotta have your word, though. Jane, and Joyce and her family - they gotta be in the clear. Safe and protected, you hear me?”

Owens nodded. “I told you, all that’s done. After this whole shitshow with Brenner, it’s unlikely Hawkins will ever be used again. It’s all about damage control.”

Hopper looked at him for a moment, long and hard. After what he’d done to El - he was wary of rushing into any sort of deal. Wary of the consequences, wary that he’d screw it all up even more. 

“I want it written down. Signed by everyone in charge. So it’s binding.”

Words didn’t really matter to the government people; they could pass any document through the literal or even metaphorical shredder and it would be meaningless. But he could keep copies of it, thrust it under the public’s nose and _make_ them see if he got screwed over. 

Owens sighed and passed a hand over his face. “Like I said, these military types- working with them, it’s not easy.”

“There’s no deal otherwise.”

He seemed to consider his options for a moment, before moving off and picking up the phone sitting on a nearby desk. He had a hushed, animated conversation with whoever was on the line, and Hopper watched impatiently. There were so many forces to contend with - Brenner, Owens, the Upside Down. They didn’t have time for any delays.

Finally Owens came back, looking resigned. “They’ll sign. But you gotta play ball. Tell us where Brenner is, and if it checks out they’ll put pen to paper. I’m sorry,” he added, at Hopper’s expression, “but you gotta put yourself in my shoes. The pressure from the higher-ups - it’s enormous. We can’t afford to let Brenner go, just like you can’t afford to lose Joyce and your kid.”

After a long silence, Hopper nodded. “Okay. He’s at a motel, at this address-“ He gestured and Owens fished a notebook from his pocket and handed it to him. “You better not fuck me on this,” he said slowly, looking Owens dead in the eyes. “We have a deal, yeah?”

The doctor looked at the address, something racing behind his eyes. Then he looked up slowly. “He’s not there, Jim. Please don’t lie to me.”

Hopper stared at him. “What- I’m not lying, he’s there-“

“Well, I’d hoped to avoid telling you this, but my military counterpart sent soldiers to that address under an hour ago, and Brenner wasn’t there.”

His stomach dropped like a stone. 

—

“Will, sweetie, it’s okay- Will, look at me, look at _me,_ okay?”

Joyce’s voice had a desperate edge to it, but she had to keep her son calm. Had to find them a way out of this that didn’t involve her son- her son fucking _dying_ , right before her eyes. She couldn’t give up El, she _couldn’t-_ but Will-

And the man- the shadow monster- his eyes were dark, and cold. They sent violent chills racing through her, like how she’d felt that night at the Lab when her son had looked at her without a hint of recognition in his dark, dark gaze, when Bob-

Bob screaming, reaching, dying- Hopper’s arms going round her, dragging her back even as she fought to go back, fought to die by Bob’s side. Mike steering her into the car. Jonathan asking, pleading, _what’s wrong? Are you hurt? What-_

Being capable only of incoherent sobbing in response.

Losing Bob like that- it destroyed some part of her. Like she’d given a little piece of herself to him, to the idea of a nice small house in rainy Maine, and it had been ripped away to leave a wound that would never heal. Would remain raw and bloody. 

As she looked into this man’s eyes, she saw that they were the same blind eyes of the demogorgon, the demodogs - the same evil that took over her boy, left him sobbing into her shoulder. And she was filled with rage.

“I need the girl!” the man shouted. His voice was wild and manic, increasingly less human in quality - and she wondered how she hadn’t guessed from the moment he walked through the door.

“Stop this,” Joyce said. She stared at him unflinchingly.

He pressed the knife down on Will’s jugular, so it dug into his skin. One slip and it would draw blood - and Joyce couldn’t let that happen, she _couldn’t._

“I swear to god- get the fuck away from my son-“

“Where- is- the girl?” the mind flayer said, slowly and deliberately. 

The anger was coursing through her now, mixing with the panic that pounded in her veins to create something hot and electric in her heart. Something that pulsed down to her hands, sparking there like it was waiting for her. She thought of Will, thought of El- the flame only grew hotter.

“Please, stop,” she whispered. Not because she thought he might listen, but because she was afraid of what might happen if he didn’t.

“I killed your Bob,” he said, seemingly oblivious to the fire that crackled on her skin. “I can kill your son just as easily.”

Bob’s blood splattering the air. Reaching uselessly. The fear in Jonathan’s eyes. Will screaming, the blood pouring from El’s nose. 

“Why do you want the girl?” Her voice was barely audible, wavering only slightly.

“She’s powerful,” he replied. “I made her that way, though I didn’t realise it. I gave her power - I want it back.”

What- what did that mean? Their powers- were they all the fault of the Upside Down, of the shadow monster? Was that what had started this whole thing?

Joyce clenched her jaw. Her hands were shaking now - not with anxiety, but with the barely suppressed energy that thrummed through her every nerve. She could feel it collecting in her body, like a bomb waiting to go off - but she was afraid. What if she hurt Will? What if she couldn’t control it, if she allowed it to escape?

“Fuck you,” she spat. This- this _thing_ , that had taken so much from her, from her family. That had made it so her boy couldn’t sleep at night, so she herself panicked whenever she passed Radioshack. That nearly killed El with the effort it took to close the gate.

A tendon quivered in Will’s pale, exposed neck, jumping against the press of the knife. Joyce swallowed hard. Then there was a bright spot of blood, trickling down deliberately-

And she couldn’t think anymore. The grief, the guilt, the rage- it all took over.

And everything exploded in white hot light. 

—

Something had happened. El felt it, like something sparking in her chest, that made her jolt in shock. She looked over at Kali, in the backseat with her and Nancy while Axel drove, and the older girl’s face matched hers. “I felt it too,” she whispered.

“What- what’s happening?” Nancy asked, looking between them worriedly. 

El shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“It’s almost like a-“

“A disturbance,” she finished for her sister. She was thinking of the movies Mike had made her watch, about Jedi knights who could move things with their minds like she could, and feel things in something called the Force. It had been fun to watch, especially with Mike pressed warm to her side, but she’d found eerie parallels in it.

“What, like in Mike’s weird movies?” Clearly, Nancy was thinking the same thing. 

“ _Star Wars_? We’re seriously going with _Star Wars_ right now?” Axel said from the front, eyes not leaving the road. “I get you guys are fucking weird, but-“

“Axel,” Kali said, tone brooking no argument. Her dark eyes shifted back to El. “Where do you think it came from?”

El closed her eyes, searching within herself for the root of that feeling. There was a tinge of darkness in the air, but the disturbance itself didn’t feel malicious-

And that was as far as she could explain it, because everything she felt- it was beyond words. It was like she was a scared kid meeting Mike for the first time again, reducing the awful, horrific complexities of Brenner and the Lab to ‘bad’ because she lacked the words for anything else. It wasn’t a nice feeling. She didn’t like not understanding things, and this- whatever it was, it was beyond her comprehension.

Two, sitting quiet in the front seat, suddenly spoke up. “Did it feel- did it feel dark? Like something cloying, and diseased?”

“No,” El answered, frowning at the knowing gravity on the woman’s face. “It was the opposite- like something was being defeated, driven out.”

Kali turned to Nancy. “How much further?”

“Not far - only a few minutes now,” she replied. El had followed the trail in the dark place, found Joyce at the middle school. What they planned to do when they got there, she wasn’t sure, but she’d managed to convince Kali that this was important. _We can’t just leave her. We don’t leave family._

At this last plea, her sister’s face had dropped. And now they were here, on their way. Papa- Brenner- he was tied up in the back, duct tape plastered over his mouth. Nancy hadn’t wanted to bring him, had argued vehemently otherwise - _what if they catch us, that means they get him too -_ but Kali was adamant. _We all stay together._

Even silent, bound and gagged, even looking away, he had a power. A certain magnetism, that felt inescapable. El snapped her gaze away, staring straight ahead, trusting the feeling in her chest to lead them away from all this. 

When they arrived at the middle school, it was immediately apparent something was wrong. El sat up in her seat, craning her neck to see out the windshield- and what she saw made her heart sink.

The whole front of the school - not the gym, where she’d found Will in the kiddie pool, but the side with classrooms where she’d destroyed the demogorgon - was in ruins. The walls, the roof had collapsed into piles of rubble, with smoke rising in faint swirls above the brick. El stared, horror rising in her throat - what had caused this? Who?

Two was staring at the wreckage, hands white-knuckled in her lap. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, eyes dark. “He’s been here,” she whispered.

“Who?” El asked, dreading the answer.

“ _Him._ The shadow creature.”

El felt cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! so this chapter is probably the one i’ve been most excited about posting thus far. joyce being a badass is my favourite thing, so here’s a massive dollop of it :)
> 
> also, exams and everything are all officially over now, so i actually have the time/energy to respond to comments! so please do let me know what you think, i love hearing your thoughts and it really does spur me on to write more.  
> xxx


	22. 002

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce & Hopper reunite, and Two tells her story.

The moment it hit them - a wave of white heat that left Hopper feeling off-balance and dizzy - everyone in the gym began a frenzy of hurried activity. Guns were loaded, safety off, and Owens turned to him with his mouth set in a line.

“Come with me,” he said.

“What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” Owens replied, leading him down a corridor with slow, cautious movements. The soldiers were rushing past them, their heavy footsteps echoing in the empty school. 

Then suddenly they stopped ahead of them, raising their guns. “Stop! Put your hands on your head!” There was a moment of silence, then, “I said show us your hands!”

Hopper craned his neck to see who it was, hidden by the mass of khaki-clad bodies. Then Owens stepped forward and cleared his throat. The crowd parted, the soldiers moving seamlessly in deference, to reveal-

Joyce. Her face was bloody, it dripping in bright, horrific streams from her nose and ears. Will was standing next to her, looking scared but unharmed, and she was clutching his hand like she’d never let go. Her other hand remained still by her side. In her eyes there was a weary challenge, her chin jutting out. _Try me_ , her posture seemed to say. 

Hopper stared at her, a whole swirl of emotions churning in his gut. That she was here, alive and defiant, sent relief coursing through him. But that she was _here-_

There were cuffs dangling, still clamped around one wrist. That could only mean one thing, and it made him burn with rage.

“Hands up!” one soldier shouted again. He was young, his voice wavering slightly - and Hopper couldn’t blame him, because there was something unnerving about Joyce’s unflinching stare. But then the soldier moved forward, and his gun was directed at her skull-

Hopper shoved his way to the front and raised a hand at the soldier, ignoring the many other guns that swerved to aim at him - because at least they weren’t aimed at Joyce and Will anymore.

Joyce’s gaze snapped to him, something unreadable appearing there. “Hopper,” she whispered, and the fight seemed to go out of her. Her shoulders dropped.

“Stand down,” Owens ordered the soldiers. He moved to stand beside Hopper. “Joyce- you okay?”

Hopper rounded on him. “Okay? Is she okay? You- jesus, you let me think they were back at the motel this whole time, what the fuck are you up to?”

The doctor raised his hands in an attempt at placation. “Jim, I can explain-“

“Hopper!” Will’s voice rang out and he turned to see Joyce wavering, leaning heavily on her son. Owens made a gesture and suddenly there was a soldier stepping forward with a chair, which Will guided her into. 

Owens gave another order and the soldiers moved off down the corridor, giving them space. A moment later a medic arrived, reaching out with probing hands, inspecting a fine cut on Will’s neck-

Joyce shoved an arm in front of him. “You are not going _near_ my son.”

“Joyce- what happened?” Hopper was desperate, searching for any explanation for all this, any at all.

She looked up at him with weary eyes. “Him- that _thing-_ the thing that had Will-“

Her words settled cold in the air. She fell silent, apparently unable to explain further, but what she had said-

He turned to Owens, whose face was resigned. Like he’d expected this. Like he’d known. 

At Hopper’s thunderous expression, the doctor sighed. “We suspected, with the all the shit going on, but we weren’t sure.”

“And Joyce and Will? Where the fuck do they fit into this?”

Owens looked pained. “Like I said, we’re under massive pressure to get shit done. We suspected there to be some kind of connection between the subjects of the number program and the Upside Down, as you call it. I didn’t want it to play out this way, but the soldiers have other priorities. But whatever happened in there - to you, Joyce, and to Will - that was never part of the plan. What happened?”

“There was a man - he was possessed, like- like I was,” Will supplied, voice tremulous. “He had a knife-“

“He was going to hurt Will,” Joyce said. Her tone was desperate, but defiant. “Hop, he wanted El- I couldn’t let him have her-“

“Why would he want her?” Owens interrupted.

“He said he gave her power, and he wants it back.” Will looked troubled.

There was dark, sad satisfaction on the doctor’s face. “That confirms our suspicions. What Brenner did with sensory deprivation, the isolation tanks, the LSD - all of that must have created some sort of connection with the Upside Down. That’s why El can find people between dimensions.”

“I can do it too,” Will whispered. 

Joyce looked up at him in alarm, as Hopper made a frantic gesture to _stop talking._ He didn’t want Owens to hear any of this, didn’t want him to know more than he absolutely had to. 

“Really?” he said. “Hm, now that is interesting. But what happened to the building? Was that the creature too?”

Will was shaking his head, face torn between awe and fear. In the silence, Joyce’s whisper was loud, catastrophic and undeniable: “It was me.”

—

Joyce let the men’s voices wash over her head. She felt bone-tired, her head pounding from strain, her legs weak and shaky. At some point someone had draped a blanket around her shoulders, but she couldn’t say when. They’d released Jonathan, and he was arguing furiously with Owens, with Hopper butting in with his own angry suggestions. She ignored them.

Everything was different now. It was like something had been unlocked under her skin, deep in her chest - something that had been lying dormant there for a long, long time, and was only now awake. She could still feel the energy crackling at her fingers, to be called up with a single thought. Power that could cause massive, unwitting destruction with the nod of her head. 

It wasn’t just light, she knew that much. It couldn’t be. Light couldn’t do that, couldn’t tear through brick and bone like they were nothing more than paper. And she and Will had walked out of it without so much as a scratch - while the man’s possessed husk was reduced to a mess of blood in the rubble. 

Will was sitting beside her now, looking up at them arguing with a frown on his face. She ached to smooth it away, to make her boy smile again, but after everything that had happened, that continued to happen- 

It seemed less and less likely they’d ever lead a normal life. 

Finally there was quiet, and she looked up to see Owens sigh with an expression of resignation. “Look, I’m not gonna stop you leaving. I think we can all agree it’s all gone to shit anyway. Just- don’t try to leave Hawkins, okay? We’ll be in contact. We might need you-“ he looked directly at Joyce, “- and Jane yet.”

She swallowed hard. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that meant.

“Wait- one more thing, how did you know where we were? Where Mom was?” Jonathan crossed his arms, expression distrustful. 

Owens passed a shameful hand over his face. “They put a tracker in your car, Joyce.”

Of course they fucking did. 

The soldiers did her the kindness - or the disfavor - of bringing back her car from the warehouse when they took her, and as soon as they reached it Hopper took a knife to the upholstery of the seats. He soon found the tracker, a thin black thing that looked innocuous enough, and crushed it under his shoe. Owens may have released them, but there was no trust in the air between them, between any of them. Joyce held her sons close and hoped they were past the worst of this nightmare - it was all she could hope, and a slim hope at that.

Then there was the sound of hurried footsteps, and she looked up to see El emerging from thin air. “Joyce- Will-“ she said abortively, throwing herself into Joyce’s arms. She couldn’t fail to notice that the girl passed over Hopper entirely - and could she blame her? 

Nancy appeared behind her, and tugged Jonathan into an embrace. Joyce felt weak with relief that they were safe, that they were all safe- that they were all together again, which was more than she’d dared hope for. But they had to get moving. Figure out what the hell they were gonna do next.

“We need to go, find somewhere we can regroup,” she said. 

Nancy was ready with the answer. “Everyone’s still at Steve’s, we could go there.”

There were no objections. But then Kali materialised, her van behind her, and Joyce knew without even looking that there would be horrible suspicion on Hopper’s face. “Jonathan, El and me can ride with Kali,” Nancy went on to say, seemingly oblivious to the storm brewing. 

“No, El’s not going anywhere with-“

“We don’t have time for this argument,” Joyce interrupted. She let her all-consuming weariness leak into her voice, provoking Hopper to an expression of defeat. He looked between her, El and Kali, torn. “Hop, Will- you ride with me.”

El was pointedly avoiding his gaze, and it was under a cloud of despair that he assented. As Will got into the car, she stepped close to Hopper, grabbing his arm. “Look, I don’t know what she’s told you but this is her sister, and they trust each other, which means I’m willing to give her a shot.”

Hopper looked at her for a long moment, silent. “I just- I’m just worried about El. I wanna keep her safe, and with all these new variables-“

She knew what he meant. Owens, Brenner, the military presence, the shadow monster, Kali - all of it was piling on harder and faster than they could manage. So much to contend with. So much to defend against.

“Just- how about a little trust here?” She looked him square in the face, eyes serious as she repeated words they’d shared in the grief of a missing son, words that may as well have been tattooed on her heart. It was an unsubtle manipulation, a reminder of all they’d shared, a reminder that for all the times he’d been right she’d been right too. 

He locked gazes with her, eyes shadowed and unreadable. Maybe it felt selfish, asking him to trust her when she still couldn’t bring herself to completely trust him - but she hadn’t betrayed him. She would never. And she needed him- El needed him, though perhaps she couldn’t see it. Will needed him, the father he never really had. Jonathan needed him, despite all the times they butted heads. Hopper was as much a part of her family as any of them by this point.

He nodded. “Okay,” he said. 

It took them less than ten minutes to get to Steve’s, and when they arrived all the kids ran out to meet them. She noticed Kali and Two standing back, arms crossed, the former looking wary and unsure, and Joyce went over to them with purpose. “We need to talk,” she said lowly. 

Two looked at her and she resisted the urge to flinch. There was something about her stony gaze, something that made her want to run, to hide- but she steeled herself. This was something she had to face. She had to know what was going on here.

“Wait, who are they?” 

All three of them whipped around to see Dustin, face scrunched up in confusion. 

“They’re with us,” Nancy cut in, with a face that brooked no argument. Joyce was surprised by the vehemence of her defence - whatever had gone on in her brief absence was clearly enough to make the girl trust them. 

All the kids starting talking at once until Steve herded them inside with a long-suffering expression. El stayed outside, firmly attached to Kali’s side with apprehensive eyes. 

“I’ll tell you what I know,” Two began, “but only you and the girl.” She looked at El, then up at Hopper. He was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, jaw taut. “Not him.”

He looked about to protest, but Joyce sent him a look into which she tried to channel everything she was feeling - _We have to trust them, please trust me. Let me do this. Let me take charge for once._ He nodded shortly, his eyes containing their own secret message - _Talk to me. Don’t cut me out of this._

And she would talk to him, she would. She’d take him aside later, tell him what she’d learned, strategize and plan together - but for now it was up to her.

Steve offered them his father’s study to talk. El perched on the desk and Joyce leant beside her, while Two took the chair and Kali stood watchfully by the door. Joyce had to take a moment to reflect on the absurdity of the situation - Kali, who was dressed like one of those punks on MTV shows, looked so completely incongruent against the dark wood panelling of Harrington’s study. John Harrington, whom she’d once kissed in an ill-fated game of spin the bottle way back in high school. Simpler times.

She felt the sudden, desperate urge for a smoke, but this wasn’t the time.

“So- you know me as Two,” the woman started. Her tone was flat, lifeless - and not for the first time Joyce thought how _off_ she seemed, like there was almost something missing. “The second of Brenner’s twisted experiments. I had the ability to manipulate thought - telepathy, he called it. I could reach through the void into someone’s mind, extract and erase as I wanted.”

Joyce frowned at her use of the past tense. Had she lost these powers? And there was still the pressing, burning question - how was she still alive?

“Brenner used me to vet the new subjects. He used me for a lot of things - so many it had consequences. I began having migraines and blackouts- and one time, well, I just never came back.”

She fell silent and Joyce leaned forward. “What does that mean?”

Two scoffed. “You think you were the first to make contact with the other side? That your boy was the first to have that- that _thing_ inside his brain? Seeing what he sees? Reading his thoughts?” She shuddered. “My powers- they left me open, vulnerable. Everytime I reached out with my mind, it was there, waiting- and one time, finally, it reached back. It took me. I was all but a puppet for a long while. One day, finally, I was able to break free - but it took all my strength. I lost my powers, and I was bedbound, feeble, for months - but not before I escaped Brenner and the Lab. I had to fake my death.”

Joyce stared at her in horror. “That shadow creature- it had you too?”

Two nodded, eyes dark and shadowed. That explained it, then, the feeling of something missing about her - because while they’d been able to burn the thing out of Will after only a few days, she’d had to do it alone after months of control. No wonder it had taken its toll.

“Wait-“ Joyce was still struggling to reconcile everything, to match up Two’s behaviour in her memory with her words.

“Joyce said you were bad,” El said quietly. “That you supported Papa.”

Two pinched her lips together. “I did, at first. He promised groundbreaking things, and I- well, I had nothing to lose. But when my health declined, and he refused to stop- I saw what kind of man he was.”

_But not when you saw children being tortured,_ Joyce thought darkly. A shared glance with El told her the girl was thinking the same - but she tried to communicate to her that neither of them should say anything. They couldn’t afford to ostracise Two, not yet, not before she’d told them everything they needed. (Still, the mother in Joyce recoiled at her callous attitude.)

“How did you come to meet Kali?” she asked.

“I was using the apartment of one of Brenner’s old coworkers as a refuge. She came to take her revenge, and found that I’d beaten her to it.”

Kali’s eyes were wild with a kind of nostalgic delight. “You made a good job of it,” she said, and Joyce felt uneasy at the sadism in her voice, even as she felt it resonate deep within her. (Because hadn’t she done the same, really, with the shadow creature? Hadn’t she revelled in its screams even as they were torn from her son’s throat?) 

“Listen, we came here because I felt something wrong.” Two’s eyes were deadly serious, and Joyce couldn’t look away. “I didn’t know what exactly, I only had a feeling, but Eight grew concerned about Eleven and she was after Brenner anyway, so here we are. And now we know- it’s that thing, the shadow creature, again. I want to help you destroy it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the TRAILER??? OH MY GOD??? joyce being involved in the action, joyce having a voiceover, JOPPER HOLDING HANDS???? my life is complete wow i’m so goddamn excited
> 
> see my tumblr (palmviolet.tumblr.com ) for my final theory ;)
> 
> let me know what you think!! i’m gonna continue with the weekly updates until this is finished, so it will go on after s3 is out - please keep reading then lol even though all this will have been jossed completely. 
> 
> xx


	23. To Absent Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper and Jonathan unearth something horrifying in Steve’s yard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for gore/body horror and brief mentions of domestic violence.

Hopper paced up and down in Steve Harrington’s living room and tried to resist the urge to break something. There was pent-up energy, stress, fizzling in his veins, making him clench his fist and grind his teeth. Joyce and El were in there with those people - other subjects, people he didn’t know, people he couldn’t trust - and all he could do was sit here, clueless, powerless. It was an echo of how he’d felt by Sara’s bedside, as Diane drew away from him and his life crumbled to ash in his hands. God, and that only made him feel worse-

“Jesus Christ, Indy, won’t you sit the fuck down? You’re making me antsy.”

This came from the guy with the frankly ridiculous pink hair, who was sprawled across the back of the sofa with a cigarette poking out from between his lips. “Indy?” Hopper scoffed, pausing to glare at him. “The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Uh, Indiana Jones? Harrison Ford? It’s a great movie, you should be flattered-“ Dustin started, then fell silent as Hopper swung round to stare at him. “I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be smoking in here,” the kid said to Axel, who scoffed.

“Who’s gonna stop me? Is the big bad police chief gonna come lock me up?”

“You’re a real dickwad, you know that?” Dustin muttered under his breath.

Axel raised his eyebrows and looked set to respond when suddenly Jonathan rushed in, the raw edge of panic in his eyes. “Chief- there’s something you should see outside.”

Of course, at an announcement such as this, all the kids rose to their feet and followed him outside in an excited, nervous stampede. Hopper had to raise his voice to make himself heard when he reached Steve and Nancy, who were out in the yard staring at something half-buried in the snow. 

“Chief- I was shovelling the yard and I found this,” Steve said, running a hand through uncharacteristically flat hair and stepping back to let Hopper see. “If that’s not some Upside Down shit I don’t know what it is-“

It was a dog - or at least, it had been a dog at some point in its life. It was little more than a decaying skeleton now, flesh folding into bone, grotesque and half-frozen. There was a gaping hole etched in its ribcage and its cheek, and as he peered closer a sinking feeling appeared hollow in his stomach. Because in the gaps where the flesh had rotted away, there were, stretched between the bones, sticky blue tendrils. Tendrils he recognised with a sickening jolt. Tendrils he’d seen festering in trees and pumpkins and tunnels underground.

A hand landed on his arm and he looked around into Jonathan’s shadowed eyes. “Hopper- it’s- it’s our _fucking dog,_ look- look at the nametag-“

“What?” Will said, stepping closer, but Hopper didn’t look at him. Instead he crouched down, slipped on a glove and brushed away the snow from the dog’s neck. And there it was, the grubby blue collar, with the little metal tag cheaply engraved to read _Chester._

“Oh, jesus,” he muttered, as Will gave a cry and buried his head in Jonathan’s shoulder.

“How the hell did he get here? We- we buried him in the woods just off our yard- it’s a ten minute walk away-“

“That thing’s a corpse, it’s not like it could walk here,” Steve interjected with customary insensitivity. Nancy glared at him while Hopper straightened up and ran a hand over his beard. 

“It probably just got dug up by some animal,” Max suggested. “That’s not unreasonable, right? I mean, the Upside Down stuff is weird-“

“What, and dragged all this way to Steve’s yard?” Mike said. “And then just dumped here?”

“Mike’s right, animals don’t act like that. This is really weird.” This came from Nancy, her eyes sharp. “We should go back to where you buried it.”

This caused another commotion and Hopper raised a hand. “Enough, okay? No one’s going anywhere until we know it’s safe. We’re gonna wait for Joyce, and in the meantime no one’s doing _anything,_ got it?”

His authoritative tone clearly worked, because the kids quieted down. Will still looked shaken, Jonathan too, and suddenly it hit him like a blow-

There was something he hadn’t yet told them. Hadn’t had the chance to- but he was running out of time. The longer it went, the longer he kept silent, it would get worse and worse when they finally knew. They may not have loved their father - may have actively despised him - but he was their father. He knew a little something about that. 

But he had to tell Joyce first. She’d know best how to break it to them, and she’d never forgive him if he told her boys before her. So all he could do was wait.

And then there was the matter of Brenner. The man was still tied up, thrown unceremoniously in Harrington’s shed. All their plans, all their distant ideas of blackmail and revenge- they were on the backburner, to put it lightly. They were in a state of emergency, of crisis, right now. There was no time for anything else.

(God, he was tired.)

“Alright, everyone inside.” The kids trooped off, Dustin hanging back with scientific curiosity before Steve gave him a shove. Then it was Hopper and Nancy left alone in the yard, the girl looking at him somewhat critically. She opened her mouth and he fumbled for a cigarette without looking at her, because she knew what she was about to say. She had the same stubborn tenacity as El, as Joyce too. Something about Hawkins women.

But her words when she started to speak weren’t quite as harsh as he expected. “Look, all due respect, you’re not alone in this. I get you’re the adult, you’re the Chief of Police, it’s your responsibility, but alternate dimensions- it’s not exactly your jurisdiction. Did you ever think you’re maybe not always the most capable man for the task? That maybe you can and should rely on other people?”

He lit the cigarette and took a long puff on it before answering. Since when had teenagers been this wise, or at least this solemn? He and Joyce hadn’t been, he was sure. “Believe me, it’s occurring to me more and more,” he muttered. And it was. Joyce had all but taken charge - though that wasn’t new, she’d always been fierce in her independence, her heroism - and without El, without Nancy and Jonathan, even without the other kids, they might all have been dead already. “But one day those kids are gonna get themselves killed, your brother included. That what you want?”

Nancy met his gaze coolly. “I’m just saying. I think we’ve all been through enough to understand the dangers. And what if you get yourself killed? Or make a decision as stupid as trusting Brenner again?”

His gaze dropped. So they all knew. 

“You’re asking us all to trust you, when you should just be sharing all this shit. Personally I think it would make us all a whole lot safer.” She looked at him hard for a moment, before turning and walking back inside. Well. If he wasn’t humbled enough already.

—

As Joyce was moving to the door, the meeting having come to some sort of conclusion - because she needed to be up, to be doing something, anything useful - Kali stepped forward and called her back. “The school- the destruction there- what caused that?”

Joyce was silent.

“That was you, wasn’t it?” The girl stepped closer. Her eyes were dark, intent. “You’re more powerful than you know. It’s not something to be afraid of.”

“El,” she said tightly, in lieu of a response. She wanted to go, to take El and leave these two behind. There was something dangerous in the air, dangerous and alluring. Suddenly she could understand how El had been sucked in, how it had felt like she was being mentored, liberated. Kali’s intentions weren’t bad, Joyce could tell. There was an honest look in her eyes, a look that belonged on a much younger face. The girl just wanted to share her burden, find kindred spirits. Joyce could understand that. And while she clearly had a talent for manipulation, she didn’t seem to be doing it on purpose. It was like it came as naturally as breathing - probably born out of years of doing the same thing literally, with her powers.

And yet-

Joyce wanted to learn more about her own abilities, she did, but at the same time-

She was happy the way she was. If they could just defeat this latest threat- if she could just go back to her house with her boys, and El, and Hopper- Everything would be fine. She didn’t need powers, she didn’t want to explore this new avenue of her life and the painful memories it would no doubt rake up. And going down that road with Kali and Two-

It would only lead to more bloodshed, she was sure of it. 

So she looked Kali in the eye - looking down, for once, which was a rare occasion - and spoke calmly. “I’m not afraid of it. But I don’t think it’s our biggest priority right now.” She went to the door. “Now, I’m gonna go make sure Hopper and your friend with the hair haven’t murdered each other.”

El followed her, and they went out to the living room where the kids were all draped over the furniture like worn out puppies. Will was sitting close to Jonathan, a kind of crushing dismay in the slope of his shoulders, and immediately Joyce’s heart sank. God, would this never end?

“Mom!” Jonathan said, standing and hurrying over. “There’s something you need to see.”

And it was Chester - Chester their _fucking dog,_ that they’d wrapped in a blanket and buried over a year ago - and there was something going on here. She stared at him - it - with a rising tide of nausea.

“Any theories how he got here?” That was Hopper’s voice, gruff but unusually tender. She turned to look at him, tearing her eyes with difficulty from the decaying corpse. He was finishing a cigarette, shoulders hunched against the cold, and then he held it out to her. She debated not taking it, debated rejecting the raw plea for trust in his eyes - but she recalled her words from earlier. _How about a little trust here?_ That worked both ways.

So she reached for it, and the brush of their fingers made her shiver. He still had so much power over her - such a visceral effect on her, no matter what he’d done. Maybe that was something she’d have to accept.

“God, I don’t know,” she said in answer. “Hopper- I talked to Two. I think she can help us stop the shadow monster, for real this time.”

His gaze sharpened. Jonathan was frowning, hands twitching with nervous energy by his sides. “How do we know that’s even what this is? How do we know it’s not- it’s not something different?”

He was clutching at straws, she knew. Besides, he wasn’t there in that room with Will, with that _thing_. He hadn’t felt the cold horror of its eyes. Joyce knew, knew deep within, heavy in her heart, that whatever they’d begun last October was something they had to finish.

“It was there, Jonathan, it’s back. I’m certain.”

Her son nodded shortly, briefly. An assurance of trust, of belief. 

“So Two can help us.” Hopper’s voice was tinged with mistrust. “You sure we can trust her?”

Joyce didn’t know, but there had been some broken honesty in the woman’s eyes. Some thread of something she could believe. She nodded. “She’s our best shot.”

There was hesitation in his eyes, in the set of his jaw- but he looked at her resolutely, calmly. “Okay,” he said. Just like that. Like he was deferring to her, trusting her, believing her, letting her have the last word, where maybe he hadn’t in the past-

And suddenly all she wanted to do was melt into him. To let him pull her against him and stroke her hair, kiss her softly, gently, warmly. More than anything in the world, she wanted that. But right now- it wasn’t the time.

She took a final drag of his cigarette. “Okay, so we’ll figure something out. We send someone to check out my house, see if it’s safe, we can investigate Che- the dog.” She had to take a breath at that. Chester had always been more Will’s than hers or Jonathan’s, but she’d fed him, taken him on walks, spent her meagre salary on vet bills near the end. He’d curled up beside her on lonely nights when the boys were in bed, he’d even chased Lonnie off one memorable occasion-

And now he was a rotting corpse, infected and defiled by something dark and evil. Every little corner of her life pervaded and corrupted.

“I’ll go,” Jonathan said immediately. Hopper’s eyes were warning, so he hurried to continue. “I’ll be careful, I’ll cut through the woods.”

Hopper opened his mouth, but what came out weren’t the expected protests - instead he nodded sharply. “Take Nancy with you. I assume she’s still got that gun.”

It was her son’s turn to nod, and then he hurried back inside- and Hopper turned to her, eyes suddenly, sharply grave. “Joyce, there’s something I gotta tell you. I should have told you earlier- but I couldn’t find the right moment-“

She crossed her arms, her fingers toying with a loose thread on her sleeve. Whatever this was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. Not by the painful gravity on his face. Not by the anxious turmoil that was already swirling in her head. But she nodded shortly, let him continue. 

“It’s Lonnie. He’s, um, he’s-“ He stopped, took a breath, and suddenly Joyce knew where this was going. “God, I’m sorry, Joyce- he’s dead.”

She closed her eyes. Lonnie was dead.

It didn’t feel real - none of it did - but this was worse. This was worse, because it was something she’d dreamed of on her darkest nights - dreamed of some police officer coming to her door, not necessarily Hopper, though she preferred when it was him, and taking off his hat. Saying those words - _I’m sorry_ \- that she didn’t need to hear. Once, after Lonnie had given her concussion, after he’d snarled at Will and shoved Jonathan to the floor, she’d thought about doing it herself. Thought about how easy it would be - a knife from the kitchen drawer, or his shotgun from the shed. An end to all their troubles, at least for a while.

(But she wasn’t a murderer. And she couldn’t protect her children from prison, or worse - death row.)

And now it was over. Lonnie was gone.

“I- uh, I can’t process this right now, you know? I- I’m gonna go back inside, we should work out what we’re gonna do next-“

“Joyce-“ Hopper started, tone loaded. Maybe he thought she was about to break.

“Hop, I’m fine, okay? I just- this isn’t something I have the time for, right now. Lonnie-“ She swallowed. “I’m not letting him waste any more of my time.”

His eyes softened. “Okay. Just- let me know if you wanna talk about it, okay?”

She nodded. Hopper would always be there for her, in a way Lonnie had never been- and maybe that was why she didn’t feel a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch the updates slowly creeping forward lol i might even put out the next update on wednesday, right before season 3 comes out ( i cannot BELIEVE we’re less than a week away)
> 
> anyway i hope you all keep reading after s3 because we’ve got a lot more chapters to get through, and a lot more drama and action ;) let me know what you think!!  
> xx


	24. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper makes amends.

The woods were different in the snow. Quiet, crisp, and ominous - not like the snow they’d had at Christmas, when he and Will had built a snowman in the yard. (Will wrapped up in layers upon layers of cotton and wool, because he still felt a chill.) There was nothing comfortable or beautiful about the arctic landscape - it felt sinister. Dead.

Jonathan buried his hands deeper in his pockets and glanced over at Nancy, who was picking her way through the undergrowth with care. There was a flashlight in her left hand, a gun in her right - and he thought she’d never looked more beautiful. She looked strong, daring, and there was no one he’d rather have by his side.

“You getting any deja-vu, or is it just me?” she said, breaking the silence. There was something fond in her voice, even as her eyes were dark and shadowed. Because that night in the forest- yeah, it had been awful, and terrifying, and left lingering scars on both of them- but it had bonded them like nothing else could.

“Little bit, yeah,” he responded, offering her a small grin. 

“So much has changed since then. You- and me, and Steve- and then the whole thing with Will, and El, and now your mom.”

He was quiet for a moment. The snowy ground crunched under their shoes, but otherwise the woods were silent. Not even a breeze stirred the trees, and there were no birds singing. “Sometimes I think - keeps me up at night, wondering - _why_ us? Why did all this have to happen to us?”

Nancy halted, looking around at him with eyes soft and cheeks flushed with cold. She stepped closer, took his wrist in her small fingers - and he withdrew his hand from his pocket and clutched at hers. Felt the warmth of her touch. “I don’t know why. I don’t think we’ll ever know why. I think-“ and she stepped even further into his space, pressing her slight body against his “-we can get through all this, together, if we don’t ask why. I think maybe that’s better. To not know.”

He smiled down at her, despite the gravity of the situation, of the surroundings, despite all that shit. He smiled at her, then kissed her lightly, and tried to forget the _why_. Maybe it really didn’t matter. 

They walked on, hand in hand now (the glare from the snow was bright enough to make the flashlight void). It was a moment he didn’t want to end - a moment of peace, of bliss, like the eye of a storm.

But there was another nagging thought pressing on his mind, one that begged to be spoken aloud. He gave voice to it without looking at her, instead training his gaze on the frosty ground. “What do you think about Hopper?”

He felt, rather than saw, her expression of surprise. “Hopper? Why?”

“Well- I mean-“ He shrugged awkwardly. “He and my mom- I don’t even want to know what’s going on between them, but _something_ is. I just- I don’t want her to get hurt. Not again.”

Nancy squeezed his hand. “He’s nothing like your dad, Jonathan. I can tell that much.”

He huffed out a sigh. That was in essence what he’d been asking - because he wasn’t so sure he could trust himself on that score anymore. Not after Bob, a man he’d antagonised and distrusted, a man who’d saved them all. _Sacrificed_ himself. No one could be further from Lonnie- but Jonathan had found himself comparing the two anyway. So how was he to know if Hopper was good for his mom? For his family? He’d let him in, trusted him this far, but after the recent revelations- betrayals-

“Look, I think he’s made a lot of mistakes. But if your mom trusts him- forgives him- don’t you think that maybe you should have some faith in her judgement?”

He looked at her, saw the earnest look in her eyes. Not empathy - Nancy’s family was fucked up in an entirely different way - but sympathy. So much it made his chest ache. And she was right. His mom - she’d made mistakes before, namely in marrying Lonnie in the first place. But she’d divorced him, kicked him out multiple times before he finally left for good, and she’d never let him hurt Jonathan or Will. If he did, it was weeks before she let him back in the house- and the final time, she didn’t let him back in at all. There was so much hurt, swirling around them all, but Jonathan couldn’t blame his mom for it. Not for a moment. And she’d learnt from her mistakes, that he knew. She did everything for him, for Will.

And he knew if he objected, if Will objected, Hopper would be out of their lives like a shot. And maybe it would make him feel safer, make him feel like their little family was happy and whole again-

But his mom deserved better. She who sacrificed everything for them. She deserved a chance at happiness - not another tragedy. And maybe their little family would never be happy and whole, not without some other components. El, and Hopper. The girl they’d somehow managed to adopt along the way, and the man who’d always been there, in some shape or form.

Jonathan could be okay with that, if he tried. He could find the softness in Hopper’s tall bulk, rather than the violence. And he would never stop looking out for, worrying about, his mom- but that was okay. Now there were two of them doing it.

Nancy gave him an encouraging smile and Jonathan ducked his head, flushing at his mental epiphany. “You’re too goddamn smart, you know that,” he said.

She smirked. “Someone has to be.” Then the smirk faded and her face was serious. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

—

It was getting dark when Hopper found El, curled beside Kali with her head resting on her knees, clutched close to her chest. He had to fight a smile at the sight - at her sleepy innocence, despite all that had happened - but then she noticed him and looked up with guarded eyes. 

“Hey, El,” he said softly. “Can we talk?”

She uncurled herself and stood up, arms folded across her chest. He saw her exchange a glance with Kali, whose eyes were dark and unreadable, before nodding silently. It was like that first icy January all over again. Like she was that quiet and wary child once more- and it hurt, because it was all because of him. Because of what he’d done.

He led her into the dining room, shut the door firmly behind them, and deliberately sat down on the nearest chair. He’d learnt from past mistakes - learnt that his height was intimidating, that his movements could convey anger he didn’t feel. And this was a conversation they had to have on equal ground.

She remained standing, remained silent. Made him work for it.

He took a deep breath.

“El, I’m- god, I’m so sorry. I know- I know there’s nothing I can really say, to make this better, but I want you to know- I’d never do it again. I promise you, I will never do anything like that to you again.”

Her face was pinched, eyes glittering with unshed tears. “You wouldn’t?”

He stared at her, fought the impulse to stand, to tug her into his arms. “Of course I wouldn’t, god, I- of course I wouldn’t.”

“Not even to save Will?” Her voice was small and broken, and suddenly, horribly, he understood. He understood that the Lab, Brenner, had trained her to see herself as expendable - and she’d begun to disbelieve it, begun to accept her own value, only for him to drag her all the way back again. Act like she was a weapon and nothing more - a weapon, not a child. Not a scared little girl. An object to be traded.

“I would find a way to save you both,” he said. Her expression was sceptical. “I would, I promise you I would.”

“But- but if you had to choose? If you could only save one of us?” There was torturous pain in her eyes, the agony of having to choose that he himself felt in his chest. 

He shook his head. “El, I’m not- Don’t do that, okay? That’s not an option. _I love you_ , El. You’re my _daughter,_ I’m your dad- if you’ll still have me. I’m not even gonna consider answering that.”

Her shoulders dropped. She stepped closer, posture melting, and it was on instinct that he pulled her towards him and let her bury her head in his shoulder. “You’re still-“ Her shoulders shook with a violent sob. “You’re still _dad.”_

And the tears began to flow down his own cheeks. 

“I- I understand,” she whispered into his shirt. “I understand why- why you did it. I’m sorry- I’m sorry you had to choose.”

“Don’t,” he said, running a hand over her full, thick hair. So different to how she was back then, and yet how similar. “I’m so goddamn sorry. You’re worth more than that, you hear me?” He pulled back, looked her dead in the eyes. “You’re worth everything- you’re worth the world.”

He didn’t think he’d ever been this open, this honest. It felt unnatural, frightening - but it was _real._ It was the only thing that would bring her back to him. 

“I am?” she said quietly, brokenly.

“Yes,” he said loudly. “Yes,” again, quieter. “God, you’re so loved. Me, and Joyce, and Jonathan and Will, and all those other kids- we all love you so much. _So much_. I can’t tell you how much.”

She looked up at him and somehow, impossibly, there was a smile beginning to dawn on her face. “I love you too,” she whispered.

And then-

And then they were okay. They breathed together, they smiled tentatively at each other and they felt the pain of the past few days, months, years dissipate. They were _okay._

—

It was nearly dark outside and Joyce had resigned herself to the kitchen, opening cupboards at random to find a distinct lack of food. Which was a problem, because there were six hungry kids waiting in the living room and who knew how long they’d be holed up in here. 

(There had been an announcement on the TV earlier by a stern faced man in a gray suit - _please remain calm, and remain in your houses unless absolutely necessary. Do not attempt to leave Hawkins. Further instructions will be provided soon._

Axel had cracked a bitter grin. “We’re all sitting ducks now. Waiting for The Man to come knock on our door.”

“Oh, great. Just great. What, are you all fugitives now? Am I harboring fugitives? God, what if they arrest me-“

“They’re not going to arrest you, Steve,” Dustin had retorted to the older kid, and Joyce had tuned them out.)

She sighed. It wasn’t like she was a great cook anyway, and with next to no ingredients-

She wondered if pizza delivery was allowed under military cordon.

But then food was forgotten, because Jonathan hurried into the room, followed swiftly by Nancy. “We went to the house,” he said, and there were shadows in his eyes, in the hollows of his cheeks.

“There was this big hole, where you buried Chester - but not like a person dug him up. More like an animal,” Nancy said. She was sticking close to Jonathan’s side, whether to comfort or to be comforted Joyce didn’t know.

“But the house-“ And now he was breathing hard, eyes wild- “There was something about it, something dark. Something horrible.” He shuddered.

“Horrible?” she breathed. Like maybe he knew- like maybe he’d felt exactly what she’d felt, back at the school. Like maybe the shadow monster was here too.

He shook his head with a look of confusion rather than denial. “I don’t know- I just- I felt it. Mom, I _felt_ it. Nancy-“ he glanced at her, and she nodded, “Nancy couldn’t feel it, but I could _. I could,_ Mom.” His tone was desperate. Desperate, like he was asking her to believe him- begging her. And wasn’t that a feeling she knew all too well.

“I believe you. And we’re gonna go check it out, tomorrow, okay? We will, we’ll- we’ll figure out what the hell’s going on.”

Nancy nodded, and Jonathan stepped forward to be pulled into a full embrace. She pressed her face into his shoulder, breathed into the soft wool of his sweater. Felt the warmth of his presence. “Let’s just- let’s just have a rest for tonight, okay?” she said, and stepped back. He nodded, pressed closer to Nancy again, and Joyce gave them her best attempt at a smile. “I’ve been trying to find some food, but I haven’t been very successful.”

Nancy smirked. “Yeah, Steve doesn’t eat much except takeaways and frozen food when his parents are away.”

Frozen food- of course. Joyce turned to the freezer, tucked in a corner so it was barely noticeable, and found within it a stack of frosty pizzas. Perfect. 

As she prepared the pizzas Nancy and Jonathan disappeared elsewhere, and when she turned around it wasn’t her son that faced her, but Hopper.

Hopper, with reddened eyes but a smile on his face. “Hey,” he said softly.

“Hey.” She found a timer on the counter and set it to ticking at a steady, incessant rate. “You- you talked to El?”

“Yeah, yeah, I did. We’re okay. I- um- I’m not sure she’s forgiven me yet, but. We’re okay.”

She stepped closer, a hand twitching up to worry at her lip. “What about us? Are we okay?”

He looked at her steadily. The turmoil of the past few days was written plainly on his face, in the slope of his jaw, in the furrow of his brow, but he seemed calmer than before. There was none of that agonised desperation. “I’m sorry, Joyce. About all of it. I should have told you about El in the beginning - should have told you everything. The deal with Brenner, that I was hiding her for a year. That’s not something I can make up for, but- I’m gonna try.”

She released a breath she wasn’t sure she’d known she was holding. “God, I’m tired,” she murmured, and finally, finally let herself melt against him. Let herself be held.

He was still for a moment, surprised, but then his arms came around her and he pressed a fragile, hesitant kiss into her hair. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and she looked up into the warmth of his eyes.

“We’re okay,” she said in answer, and leaned up. 

His mouth on hers felt like home - his eyes, and his embrace, and his lips. More like home than Hawkins had ever been. 

The kiss was chaste and soft, less heated than warm, and his hands spanning across her back did not dip any lower. Still, she thought, it would be nice. To fall into bed together. To let his touch set her on fire. 

But these were thoughts for another time, when they were safe. When they had all the time in the world. (She had to believe that such a time would come.)

So she slowly untangled herself from his embrace, a shy smile dawning on her face, her cheeks hot with a blush. He was smiling too, a smile that lit up all his features and erased all the haunted shadows-

And suddenly she thought of Lonnie. Her stomach twisted. (Bastard, still ruining things from beyond the grave.)

She didn’t want the moment to be soured, for Hopper’s warmth to be tainted with Lonnie’s malice, so she turned away. Tried to swallow the knot in her throat.

“I have to tell Jonathan and Will.”

“About Lonnie?” His voice was soft, but it twisted into hatred at her ex husband’s name. She found she was grateful for that.

She nodded silently, not trusting her voice. Her own feelings- they were twisted and confused, a tangled mess of bitterness and pain and something that might, at some point years and years ago, have been love. But her sons were a different matter. Jonathan had been open about his hatred for Lonnie for some time now, while Will still held on to some distant hope for love, for affection, for attention - but Lonnie was their father. It was a bond in blood that couldn’t easily be severed, not like the quick snip of a divorce. (Nevermind that her divorce had been neither quick nor so clean as a snip.)

So telling them-

God, she didn’t know where to start. 

But she had to. She had to.

“I don’t- I don’t feel sad,” she mumbled, glancing up with skittish eyes. “God, am I- am I horrible?”

“No,” Hopper said, leaning forward with eyes grave. “God, no. He hurt you, he hurt your kids - you’re allowed not to feel sad. Hell, you’re allowed to feel _glad_.”

She gave a wry, distant smile. “A few years ago I would have been glad. God, I’d have danced on his grave. But now-“ Her smile faded. “There’s been too much death.”

He nodded. “We’re gonna end this, Joyce, I promise. No more death.”

She closed her eyes, felt a pained expression creep across her face. “I- when I faced the shadow monster today, back at the school, all I could think about-“ She shuddered. “I kept seeing Bob, and those awful _things-_ and then Will was bleeding and I-“

She felt his hands land on her arms, rubbing soft, soothing circles.

“I lost control.” She opened her eyes, looked him in the eyes. “I could have hurt Will- what if it happens again? What if I can’t control it?”

“You could have hurt Will, but you didn’t. _You didn’t._ Even subconsciously, you couldn’t hurt him. I think that says a lot.”

But she shook her head. There were thoughts racing through her mind, thoughts she’d rejected earlier, thoughts that seemed more than logical now. Because these powers, such as they were, were too strong for her. She couldn’t do this on her own. She needed some help.

(Help that was sitting slumped with boredom in Steve Harrington’s living room.)

So she would talk to her sons, and then she would learn to navigate the newfound power that raced through her veins. And at last she would return to Hopper’s side and finally, finally rest, if only for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an early chapter for you all because ST3 TOMORROW !!!!!! i am so excited and also very nervous because i’m clearly too invested in this lol
> 
> this chapter was pretty important to me. i don’t like introducing plotlines without emotional payoff and well- i love some emotional payoff. (it’s actually one of the things i love most about fanfic - every emotional nuance is given room to breathe and be explored. it focuses on characters, not plot like novels do.)
> 
> let me know your thoughts!! (and scream at me about st3 tomorrow in my askbox, because i can guarantee i will be watching all of it as soon as it comes out)  
> xx


	25. Light Out of the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce investigates her powers further and Will faces demons new and old.

Will tried to bury the shaking of his hands in his sleeves, tried to unclench the awful tension that had settled on his chest like a stone, but it was no use. He felt uneasy, ill. Not by anything supernatural this time, but something far more human. Something he couldn’t even begin to process.

His dad was dead.

Mom had pulled him and Jonathan aside as they were finishing their pizza, a grave, tight look on her face. She’d told them outright, eyes darting between them like she was afraid of their reaction. Jonathan had said nothing, only turned away with unreadable eyes, but Will-

He hadn’t known what to feel. His first emotion had been real, tangible, crushing loss - the loss of the father figure he’d never really had anyway. The father who’d have taken him to the arcade, rather than to baseball matches. The father who’d have admired his drawings, rather than tearing them up. 

So then there was just the numbness. The pain of loss and the confusing vindication he was almost forced to feel - that he felt he had to feel. He shouldn’t feel sad - should he? Lonnie had spent so long hurting them that it was almost impossible to remember anything different - and yet Will did anyway. 

He was curled in a corner of the balcony overlooking the yard, as the night drew in. It was cold, the frigid wind snaking under his clothes and tugging at his hair, but for once he found he didn’t mind it. For once he let the cold take him and leave him numb. 

There was a sound - the screen door opening, footsteps approaching - and he jumped, hurried to brush away the tears that threatened to fall. He looked up, expecting his mom, or Jonathan-

But it was El. Her face was gentle, her steps slow and deliberate, and without thinking he smiled at her as she came to sit beside him. “Hi,” she said shyly, and he saw in the gloom that her eyes were red too.

“Hi,” he said. His voice was weak and hoarse, as though he’d been screaming for hours. The cut on his throat still stung.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, unfailingly direct.

“My- my dad-“ He had trouble getting the words out. “My dad- he’s dead.”

“Oh.” She nudged closer, pressing her shoulder against his. “And you’re sad?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m sad. He- he was awful to us, to my mom. But I still-“ His voice shook. “Is it messed up that I feel like- like I’ve lost something? Something I probably never even had?”

El’s breaths were soft and steady in the dark. “Not messed up. I feel that way too, sometimes, about- about Papa. Sometimes he read to me, or gave me pencils to draw with, and all I wanted was to- to make him proud. But he hurt me too - he locked me in the dark, and made me go into the dark place. And he hurt Mama, so I hate him- but sometimes I miss him too.”

Will glanced at her. There were the silvery traces of tears on her cheeks, but there was the hint of a tender smile on her face. “You do?”

“Yes. But we don’t have to miss them anymore. Hopper- he’s my dad now. He can be yours too.”

He blinked. He hadn’t thought of it like that. And it was true - Hopper had been more of a father to him than Lonnie had ever been. He’d helped Mom save him from the Upside Down, he’d been there for all the appointments at the Lab. And with whatever bond was growing between Hopper and Joyce, perhaps one day he might be Will’s dad legally too.

“I’d like that,” Will whispered. 

El was looking up at the sky, which was clear and bright with cold stars. “It’s so pretty.”

“It is,” he said. “See that?” He pointed up. “It’s the Big Dipper. Those four stars in a kind of rectangle, then the three in an uneven line.”

“Big- Dipper?” She frowned over the words. “A con-constellation?”

He nodded.

“Dad taught me Orion. The Hunter. He says it means strength.” Her hand landed on his unexpectedly and he jumped, before relaxing under her touch. El- she understood him like no one else did, like no one else possibly could. She’d seen the Upside Down, she’d faced the monster just as he had. 

“I prefer Gemini,” he said. “The twins. It means strength, but not the strength of a warrior. It means the strength of family, and friends.”

She smiled at him. “I like that better.”

And he felt a little less alone.

—

Will and El had disappeared somewhere together, and as much as Joyce longed to go to him, to comfort him, to brush away his tears, she knew she wasn’t what she needed right now. She would only confuse him further. El, on the other hand- El could understand. El could be what he needed. 

Jonathan had retreated back to Nancy’s side, something closed off in his expression. Joyce knew she’d have to talk to him about it again, knew this wasn’t nearly so simple as to be fixed by silence, but for now-

She’d let him come to her.

So that left her approaching Kali with nervous eyes. She was finishing a slice of pizza that was dripping with hot sauce raided from Steve’s cupboards, and there was real appreciation in her face. Joyce was startled by the image - by the reminder that this hardened, bitter person was still human, still really only a girl. And her eyes, when she looked up, were for the first time lazy and unguarded.

“Hi,” Joyce said. “I- uh- what I said earlier, about my powers-“

Kali sat up straighter, eyes gleaming. “You want to learn?”

“I just want to control it, that’s all. In case I hurt someone.”

The girl’s eyes were unreadable. And Joyce supposed she didn’t have to worry about that - her powers were immaterial, intangible. Couldn’t make anyone bleed, at least not directly. (The consequences of her manipulation were a whole different story.) But Joyce’s own powers- so far they’d only worked in her favor, only hurt those she wanted to hurt, but it was surely a matter of time before there was collateral damage.

Kali opened her mouth, but it was Dustin, sitting eagerly on the sofa opposite, who spoke. “Hurt someone? I thought it was just photokinesis?”

“Photokinesis?” she asked, while Kali rolled her eyes.

“Light,” he clarified. “If you’re going to try it out, I’m coming too. For science.”

“‘For science’?” Mike scoffed from the other side of the room. “Mrs Byers isn’t a science experiment.”

_Aren’t I?_ she thought darkly.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Mike, and you know I didn’t!” Dustin snapped. She sighed.

Kali stood up. She wasn’t tall, was shorter than Joyce, but there was something about her presence that made the kids fall silent. “If you’re coming with us, you don’t say or do anything, understood? You just watch.”

He assented, and to her surprise Max, Mike and Lucas joined him in following them outside. She hadn’t exactly expected an audience, was afraid that maybe she’d hurt them - but then again, wasn’t that the point of all this? If she couldn’t learn to control it now she never would.

Kali led them out to the darkness of the yard and turned to her with a taut, almost excited expression. “What does it feel like?” she asked. “When you use your powers?”

“It feels-“ She struggled to find the words. “Natural. Like I’m tapping into something that’s already there.”

Dustin made a thoughtful sound behind her but she ignored him, her eyes not leaving Kali’s. The girl nodded, “Try doing that - try reaching into that strength.”

And so she did. She flexed her fingers, closed her eyes, and _felt._ She felt the dark around her - the cold night air and the airless void. Felt the spark around her hands, the potential for light out of the darkness. She let it build until the atmosphere was thrumming like a nerve.

“Find something that angers you.” Kali’s voice was a whisper that echoed around her, and unbidden it called up images - Bob’s blood in the air, Lonnie’s sadistic smirk. She shuddered. Instinctively she wanted to shy away, to repress such memories to the back of her mind as she’d spent so many years doing - but instead she ushered them in, sighed into them, and on her next breath she opened her eyes-

And with a hot, bright flash the snow in front of her flew up in a violent arc. It showered them, landed on her clothes, her hair, as snow no longer - but as rain. 

Kali released a breathy sound that was almost gleeful, and when Joyce turned she saw that the girl was smiling wide. The kids all looked impressed, Lucas letting out a low whistle, and Dustin had a customary thoughtful expression. “So it’s not photokinesis. Maybe it’s some kind of energy manipulation-“

Kali interrupted, ignoring him completely. “If you kept your eyes open and used your hands more, you could direct it - control it, like Jane can. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

There was some taint of disappointment in her tone, and Joyce frowned. “Yes, that’s all I want.”

The girl stepped closer. The shadowy makeup around her eyes was beginning to run after the sudden shower of rain, leaving her looking younger, more honest. “You could do so much. Who knows what you’re capable of. You destroyed the school - but it doesn’t have to be destructive. You could do so much good.”

She wasn’t trying to manipulate her. She truly believed her words, Joyce could tell. She was alone, so alone, because El had left her - and Two didn’t have powers, not anymore, so she wasn’t like them. Kali just wanted a family. Just wanted to _belong._

And Joyce was willing to offer her that, but on her own terms. She wouldn’t join her on her quest for revenge, because she wasn’t willing to found her life on the past, always looking back. She had something good here, with Hopper and El and her boys, something she wouldn’t throw away for all the revenge, all the power in the world. She had a family unit in which she wasn’t so sure Kali would fit - in which she would even want to fit. She’d shaped her life, her hopes, her future, around bloody vengeance, such that she saw it as _good_ \- and that was her prerogative. But Joyce wouldn’t be joining her in it.

So she shook her head. “I just want to keep my family safe.” It was barely above a whisper, but Kali’s face closed off. The girl nodded tightly, shortly, and brushed past her on her way inside. “Wait- Kali!” She turned, eyes questioning. “Thank you.”

The smile returned, breaking through on her face like the sun shining weakly through clouds. “You don’t have to thank me. We’re all family now.”

She turned and went inside. Then Dustin stepped forward, and Joyce tried to hide her weariness in the face of his scientific curiosity. 

“If it’s energy, instead of light, maybe-“

“Dustin-“ Max interrupted, her voice containing a warning, but he kept on going.

“What if you’re like the power gem?”

“The power gem?” Joyce echoed.

“It’s this thing in Marvel comics, it lets you manipulate energy, but it’s just fiction.” Lucas’ voice was, as usual, scathing in the gloom.

“Since when has that stopped us?” Mike replied. “Maybe Dustin’s right.”

“Energy can’t be created or destroyed, but if she said she’s tapping into something-“

“It can only be transferred or changed, isn’t that what Mr Clarke said?” The kids were buzzing now, excitement in their voices and expressions. “Maybe that’s what Mrs Byers can do. Channel existing energy into some kind of force.”

Joyce was lost. It had been a long, long time since her last science class, and she’d skipped most of them anyway. And anyway, what did it matter? She didn’t need a title, or an allegory in a comic book. 

“I’m going inside,” she said, because suddenly the exhaustion had hit her like a train. She brushed a hand over her lip, and inspected the blood that came away with weary detachment. With the bizarre realisation that this- this was her life now.

The kids were still arguing when the screen door closed behind her, but they were soon forgotten, because then Hopper was there in all his solid warmth. She looked up at him, at the smoothed-out lines on his face, at the light ocean of his eyes, and felt herself lean into him without even thinking. Without having to think.

“God, Hop, I’m tired,” she murmured, voice muffled by his shirt, and his arm came up around her. And then they were moving, and he was steering her up the stairs, and then he was guiding her between soft, expensive sheets. 

“Rest,” he said, his gravelly baritone infinitely soothing. He tugged up the blanket and stroked a gentle hand over her tangled hair, a touch so tender she wished he would keep going and never stop. But he was leaving- why was he leaving?

“Stay,” she whispered with half-lidded eyes. She’d gone from facing soldiers and monsters to being barely able to stand - and there was no one she’d rather have by her side, watching over her, keeping her warm while she slept, than him. They’d both have to face all this in the morning, but for now-

For now they could lie side by side, and they could rest. They could pretend like they were a normal couple, who loved each other like normal people did - but they weren’t a normal couple, and they weren’t normal people, not anymore. Perhaps they never were. And, she realised, they didn’t have to pretend anything anymore. They could lie here together, share the darkest, most intimate hours of the night together, and it would be more honest than any marriage bed. They weren’t a normal couple; he wasn’t a normal man, and she wasn’t a normal woman, and maybe that was what made it so much easier for her to love him. 

(Love him? No- but maybe- but no-

Her mind was spinning in exhausted circles.)

He slid into bed beside her. She curled into him on instinct, and after a moment his arm came to rest lightly over her waist. 

Her sleep was dreamless.

—

The dark was cold, and all consuming. He was blind in it. It swallowed him, rushed over his head. He was numb.

He couldn’t see everything as he usually did. He couldn’t feel the map of earth spanning under the ground. He couldn’t feel the islands of water to flinch away from. He couldn’t feel the sky, where he longed to break free. He could only feel the dark.

He was drowning in it. It was thick and noxious, toxic, inky and oily. But it was only water- water, that poisonous substance he hated. The touch of water was a brush with death. And now he was drowning in it. It rushed around him now in hasty floods and he couldn’t scream- his voice was swallowed by the silent wave. 

He opened his mouth and the water rushed in. 

It was boiling hot. It scalded his insides, made him itch and burn and purged away the cold in his bones. It filled his lungs and they retched and revolted against it - ribs heaving, throat aflame. And then there was a light - blinding hot light that he flinched away from. The darkness was gone, the inky black that had curled around him like a shield, a cocoon - there was only the fiery light.

And he shrivelled and decayed, disintegrated into ashes in the water. He became formless, lifeless, dead. Gone.

Will woke up choking on air, gasping and spluttering. He sat bolt upright and searched his chest, his arms, his legs with frantic hands - and was relieved to find he was still here. Still whole. Not gone.

It was a nightmare unlike those he’d had before. He usually dreamt in circles, images of the tunnels and Bob and the monster’s faceless evil - but this was different. This was like it was before, when the monster had been in him. Had _been_ him. He and it - they’d been one. 

Will shuddered. Maybe it was just a dream - but things were scarcely ‘just’ anything anymore. His mind was trying to tell him something. Some fragment of the shadow monster that was still in him, like when you grasped for a word that you couldn’t remember. Right there, but just out of reach. 

Something that might be vital. 

Something that might save them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the power gem first appeared in marvel comics in march 1977. as we know from the show the kids are not only d&d and star wars nerds but comic nerds too lol, so i wanted to keep the tradition of the nerdy analogy. 
> 
> so. s3, huh? i loved some of it and i hated some of it. at least here in this fic the byers family actually interact and will has a plotline lol, also there will be a happy ending i promise.  
> check out my s3 missing scenes oneshots, available on my profile!
> 
> let me know what you think xx


	26. The Source

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Byers face a new loss and a hideous discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theme song for this chapter is cold by the cure. go listen pls

Hopper rolled over in bed, his hand finding hers, her warmth comforting in the pre-dawn. He watched Joyce in the dim light - her chest rising and falling almost peacefully, her hair splayed out around her. It had only been a day since Brenner, since that adrenaline-filled night at the power station, and so much had happened since that it was easy to forget the physical toll it had had on her. She’d somehow kept on going, but she’d needed to rest at some point. She was only human. (Only!)

It wasn’t like they’d done anything - they’d both been too tired - but as he swung his legs out of bed he tried to be quiet almost guiltily. El and Max were sharing the bed in the other room, and though they all knew that he and Joyce were hardly only friends there was something loaded in the silence that morning. Like the night they’d shared, just sleeping beside one another, was something altogether more intimate than sex.

Her feather-light touch, her smell of smoke and that cheap shampoo he’d picked up at the store. Her slow breathing as she slept, something reserved only for him.

Hopper stood up and shrugged on his rumpled shirt, which he’d left draped over a chair. Then he hovered over her awkwardly, unsure, before planting a brief kiss on her cheek. She didn’t stir, but her warmth lingered as he went to the window and peered through the gap in the curtains. 

It was still dark outside. The yard was dim and faintly cast in blue by the lights of the pool, and the snow was once again white and unspoilt. It must have snowed again in the night. He squinted at his watch- 

-and his stomach dropped.

It was nearly half eight. Nearly half eight, and the sky was pitch black. 

His heart thudded with a sudden thrill of urgency. This, for sure, was something they couldn’t ignore. Like they’d reached the final act. Like the curtain was soon to fall on them, one way or another.

He looked back at Joyce. She was still comatose, her chest rising and falling visibly in the gloom, and for a moment he was struck by the overwhelming desire to fall back into bed beside her. To press his face into her hair and forget all the troubles that weighed on them like thunderclouds. He wanted it so badly-

But he couldn’t. Not yet. Not while the sun didn’t rise and the sky was dark with snow. 

He couldn’t resist sliding a hand through her hair, ghosting a hand over her cheek. God, but she looked beautiful in the halflight. Like all her troubles were smoothed away- except that wasn’t what made her beautiful. It was everything - the good and the bad, the happiness and the trauma - because she was a survivor, just like him. They understood each other, when the hardship made it difficult to breathe.

Downstairs he found Jonathan and Steve in the kitchen, the former bent over some eggs sizzling in a pan, the latter perched cross-legged on the counter with a mug of steaming coffee. The scene was so bizarrely domestic that Hopper had to question for a moment whether he’d walked into an alternate reality.

“Smells good,” he remarked, and Jonathan turned with a humble, crooked smile. 

“Eggs are about the only thing I can cook,” he said. “And I thought, well- we might not get a chance to eat later.” He glanced nervously out the window at the black, anachronistic sky.

Yeah, the kid was probably right about that. He handed Hopper a plate and Steve, not moving from his position on the counter, reached behind him for a slice of toast. “Happy eating,” Steve said. His voice was a potent mix of glum and near hysterical sarcasm - for which he couldn’t really be blamed. “That guy, Brenner - should we be feeding him? Or like, doing anything apart from letting him die of exposure in my shed?”

Hopper rubbed his forehead. He could feel an anticipatory headache coming on. “Um- okay, you can give him some food, check he’s still alive. Under no circumstances do you engage, okay? He talks to you, you stay silent.” Steve nodded. “But not yet, okay? Let’s all eat first.”

“Someone should probably get the kids up.”

Jonathan frowned. “I don’t know, let them rest. Who knows what’s gonna happen today.”

Hopper agreed. They decided to save some eggs and toast and Jonathan looked longingly at the uncooked bacon _\- we can never afford it at home_ \- but it stayed wrapped up. Who knew how long they’d be holed up here, after all. There may come a time for bacon breakfasts yet.

He was mulling over his black, bitter coffee when Joyce walked into the kitchen. Her hair was sleep-mussed, thrown into a hasty bun at her nape with loose hairs that were caught in her turtleneck, and she was blinking in the light owlishly-

And he was struck by her, like an angel had entered the room.

“Hey,” she said, approaching him. Her voice was low and sleep-rough. 

“Hey. You okay?”

“What time is it?” She hugged herself, suddenly looking very small and unsure. He wanted to go to her, though he knew it wouldn’t be appreciated - not in front of Jonathan and Steve. (He regretted her turtleneck, if only for that long, white expanse of skin- but these were thoughts for another time.)

“Around nine,” he replied. She began to chew on her thumbnail, a nervous habit she’d had since high school.

“Around nine? Jesus- it’s still dark-“

Her words fell on silent ears. They knew - they all knew. They knew how fucked this was. And she knew too, as her jaw hardened with resolve.

“We have to go to the house,” she said, and her tone didn’t invite argument. “Who knows if it’s gonna get light again, and we have to get to the bottom of _something.”_

He found himself nodding along. “Okay.”

“Mom-“ Jonathan started, holding out a plate. “At least eat something, before we go?” At her look, he hastily added, “I’m coming with you. I felt it yesterday, remember? I’m just as involved in this as you, as Will.”

After a moment, she nodded. “Okay.” And she took the plate, and ate the toast and the eggs, because of or even despite the three sets of eyes watching. 

Will appeared before they left, looking pale and hollow in the doorway, and Joyce kissed his forehead and told him to be safe. Told him with the faintest trace of stinging tears, and somehow this felt all too final-

Hopper checked and double-checked his gun. He’d be ready, if something came at them. He’d be fucking ready.

As they approached the house he kept it up, squinting through the shadowy trees. Joyce walked by his side, and even out of the corner of his eye he could see the determination in the line of her shoulders. Jonathan in turn was beside her, holding the flashlight. The woods were silent, eerily so. The crunch of their feet on the snow echoed around the trees.

“Here,” Jonathan said softly. He halted and indicated a spot just within the treeline - a great big hole in the soil, an overturned grave. “Here’s where we buried him.”

Joyce pressed a hand to her mouth. “What the hell did this?” she murmured. It was clear she didn’t expect an answer. 

“I’m gonna get some more clothes and stuff,” Jonathan said. He was shuffling uneasily, the sight of his pet’s empty grave clearly unsettling him. “Mom, should we- should we get some food?”

Her gaze flicked to him. “Yeah, I’ll come with you.”

Hopper hesitated. He wasn’t sure he liked them going off alone, unarmed - but he needed to investigate further. Besides, he supposed Joyce was a weapon all on her own now. “I’ll come and find you.”

They nodded, and went. And he crouched down at the grave and frowned. Something was off here, he knew it. He couldn’t _feel_ it, not like Joyce and El and Jonathan and Will could, but his senses were screaming at him. Something here was visibly not right, and he just had to find it.

He sifted a gloved hand through the soil, but there was none of the bluey decay he’d found in the woods last October. It was cold and pure. 

He spied a little piece of wood, thrown aside, and when he looked he saw that ‘RIP Chester’ was shakily inscribed in it. Will’s handiwork, if the muddy drawing pasted to it was any indication. He pocketed it with a pang, recalling the solemn burial of Lacey, the rabbit he and Diane had bought for Sara’s third birthday. It had grown sick just as she had, as if it could sense it, as if she and it were one - and on one cold winter’s day only a few months before Sara left him, they wrapped up the little white body and covered it with earth. Hopper’s most vivid memory of the day was Sara’s tiny, hairless face looking up at him with trembling lips and cheeks red with cold, like something otherworldly - fey, almost, under the bundles of wool scarves and knitted caps. 

He would return the little plaque to Will; he and his brother and his mom could mourn all over again, if they needed-

Then he noticed it, and Lacey was all but forgotten. Because the soil - it was dumped in a spray around the hole, not as if someone had dug Chester up with systematic strokes but random, sporadic, dirt flying everywhere-

And suddenly he realised what had happened. The pounding of his heart halted for one horrible beat, because this was too awful to contemplate- and yet he had to contemplate it anyway, because all the signs were there. 

Chester had dug himself out of the grave. 

Chester, poor, dead Chester, had crawled and clawed out of the earth like a creature in a horror movie, like something undead. Chester the dog, with the sticky blue tendrils of the Upside Down clogging in his veins.

Jesus.

Hopper stood up, a bout of nausea rolling in his stomach. He had to tell Joyce, had to explain this somehow-

(Imagine someone telling him Lacey had resurrected, that Lacey was animate and drooling- he couldn’t.)

So he hurried over to the house, where he found Joyce and Jonathan standing side by side, staring up at it together.

“Joyce?” Hopper asked, voice unsure. There was something in their postures that alarmed him.

She turned, and her face was so empty and blank that he almost stepped back. “The house-“ She swallowed.

There were disturbed, frantic tears on Jonathan’s cheeks.

“It’s infected. The Upside Down- it’s spread.” She turned back to look at the house, still standing eerily still. “We have to burn it.”

—

El blinked awake into silent, blind darkness. For a moment she felt a thrill of panic - she had fallen back into the void, she was locked in that room where Papa kept her - but she forced it back down. The sheets beneath her were soft and thick, and dimly she could make out the heavy wooden bedposts and the curtained windows beyond. She was at Steve’s house. She was safe.

The mattress beside her was empty. Max must have gone downstairs already - and El frowned, because of how dark it was still. Perhaps it was still night, and something had happened - but wouldn’t they have woken her?

She swung her legs out of bed and shrugged on the sweatshirt Steve had lent her when he’d seen her shivering last night. It was navy blue, emblazoned with some kind of sports team’s insignia, but all she really cared about was that it was warm and soft. 

In the kitchen she found Max and Lucas talking quietly. She was surprised at the sight - at how calm, how intimate they looked together. She’d been told the story of their breakup, as she hadn’t been there for most of it with Hopper limiting her to the cabin, but there was none of that angry conflict there now. 

Max looked up as she approached. “Hi,” she said, slipping off her chair and passing her a plate loaded with toast and eggs. El thought longingly of her Eggos, but she was hungry enough that she wolfed the food down without even thinking.

“Steve’s gone out to check on Brenner,” Lucas said, then suddenly looked uncomfortable - like he was worried about how she’d react. But he needn’t be. El had decided Papa had no power over her, not anymore. He was just Brenner, two syllables said in a contemptuous tone. “He said that Mrs Byers, the Chief and Jonathan went back to Will’s house, but he wouldn’t say why.”

“Well, I would guess it has something to do with the sun not rising, maybe. Just a guess.” Max’s words were scathing, but not unfriendly, and she looked at Lucas the way El looked at Mike, the way she’d seen Joyce look at Dad. 

Thinking this, she almost missed the crucial part of Max’s words. _The sun not rising._ The sun hadn’t risen? But that didn’t happen. The sun was a constant, the sun didn’t just _not rise._ It happened day after day, no matter how much you wished it wouldn’t. Nothing could stop it - not even Brenner, with all his men in white coats, or she herself, with all the power in her veins. 

(She hadn’t known the sun until she crawled out of that tunnel into the blinding light, still shaking from the darkness, the monster, the tremors up the walls. She hadn’t known it until she’d felt the soft crunch of leaves under her bare soles, seen the warm kindness of Benny and been taught the word _smile._ She hadn’t known the sun until Day One.)

She opened her mouth to respond but then Dustin entered the room and without slowing down began to speak. “Guys, I was thinking we should take another look at the dog so we can work out how it got here. It could be a valuable specimen.”

“That’s gross,” Max said. 

“Maybe he’s right, though. Mrs Byers and the Chief and Jonathan just left and who knows what they could be walking into - we could be helping them.” Lucas stood up.

“That’s Will’s dog, though. Can we at least be respectful about it?”

The boys nodded, and then the three of them trouped outside. El followed them, out of a mixture of morbid curiosity and the vague fear that she might be needed, to protect them. 

The dog was a huddled dark mass on the snowy paving beside the pool. She eyed it with apprehension while Dustin marched forward with a stick. Lucas followed him and they bent over it, examining the rotting fur, the sticky decay, with the kind of scientific eye El had learnt to despise in the Lab. She looked away.

Consequently, she missed what happened next - she only heard both boys scream and Max let out a high-pitched curse before the carcass was swept upwards and landed in the pool with a splash. All four of them stepped forward slowly, hesitantly, peering over the edge. Their faces were lit with the rippling blue reflection, the steam of the heated water forming droplets on their cold faces, and she saw that each of the others was trembling.

“What happened? I didn’t see,” she said.

“That _thing-_ that fucking thing- it was _alive_ , it moved-“ 

“It must have just spasmed or something,” Lucas said, evidently trying to explain away his fear with logic as usual.

“Year-old corpses don’t _spasm_ , Sinclair!” Dustin began to pace, muttering _shit shit shit_ under his breath in the pauses between his speech. 

“Well, whatever, Lucas kicked it in the pool.” Even Max looked shaken, Max who rarely seemed afraid of anything. “Shit, I don’t think it was a spasm. It seemed alive.”

“But how?”

“The Upside Down,” El whispered.

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” Dustin repeated, walking in hasty and frantic circles. 

“The shadow monster can raise stuff from the dead now?” Max sounded somewhere between cynical and horrified.

“We’re so goddamn screwed-“

“What’s going on?”

El turned. It was Will, wrapped up in another of Steve’s sweatshirts, looking cold and alarmed. 

“Oh- your dog-“ Max seemed at a loss to explain it, so El stepped in.

“He seemed to come alive again, for a moment,” she said. He swallowed visibly and stepped forward, taking one of her hands in his. His skin was icy cold.

“I felt something, El. I can still feel it. This sense of- of loss. I think it’s something to do with Jonathan and Mom.”

She looked at him. He was deadly earnest, eyes wide and clear. If she was Lucas she might have scoffed, if she was Dustin she might have questioned him further- but she was herself, so she just nodded. “We should go to them.”

—

The gasoline made hollow splashing sounds in the container as they poured it over the floor. They worked in silence, because they couldn’t bear to speak. Joyce thought that if she spoke she’d crumble, and have to fold and collapse into the flammable puddle with all the energy of a wilted flower. That’s what she felt like - like all the past day’s healing was in vain.

She risked a glance up at the ceiling, up at that awful shadow. She and Jonathan had entered to find the wallpaper peeling, cracks appearing and widening. She’d pulled a section of it back and gasped at what she saw, felt the panic come trembling down her spine and leaving her cold. Because the darkness had taken root there. It sent sticky black tendrils up the wall, through the insulation, the plasterboard, boring holes and usurping foundations. It hung there like the tangled legs of some great spider - like the spreading pores of a fungus. The house was lost, she’d felt it as soon as they walked in the door. They had to purge the darkness away.

She felt Hopper’s eyes on her. The weight of his concern, where before it had been comforting and warm, now felt suffocating. The knife edge of tension on which she stood and the literal fumes of the gasoline were choking her, dizzying her with light-headed nausea. Sweat was prickling on her skin under the thick, cheap wool of her sweater.

She straightened up, braced herself against the wall. She had to finish this- but suddenly she couldn’t breathe at all.

“Joyce?” Hopper asked, reaching out a hand-

But all she could see was darkness.

She stumbled past him, past Jonathan, out of the door into the freezing not-daylight. The snow was swirling again and she hit a wall of air so cold and fresh her lungs ached-

Then she doubled over and emptied her breakfast onto the frozen ground, until she was retching water. She straightened up shakily - but her head was suddenly clear, her lungs taking in the fresh air with grateful greed. That sudden panic - it was all but gone.

She turned to look at the house with suspicion. The nightmares, the increased anxiety, even the incidence of her powers-

Maybe they’d finally found the reason for it all.

Jonathan came running out of the house, Hopper close on his heels, and her son took her by the arms and looked her in the face. “Mom - what’s wrong?”

She met his gaze calmly. “That house- something about it, it’s oppressive. You feel it, don’t you? The shadow- the infestation- I think it’s been there a while. I think that’s what brought my powers out, what made me so- so goddamned anxious all the time.”

Hopper turned to look at it too. “It must have started when it had Will last year. Maybe it never completely left.”

Joyce was struck by an idea. “What if this- what if this is the source? What if when we burn it, we’re destroying the source of all this evil this side of the gate?”

Jonathan looked at her with eyes full of hope. “It would be over,” he murmured.

Hopper’s look was more sceptical, but he nodded. “So we finish this.”

So they returned to work. Joyce found a scarf and tied it around her face, teeth gritted against the oppressive weight of the shadow. There was new resolve pounding in her blood, resolve to destroy this fucking thing. To end all this. 

Occasionally they’d come across possessions - a VHS tape that had been Bob’s, an especially prized drawing of Will’s, Jonathan’s collection of mixtapes - that would make her eyes sting with regret. She wanted to take them with her, wanted to keep them and cherish them, but they’d agreed it was safer to let it all burn. People were worth more than possessions. 

And then the whole house was drenched in gasoline, and they were stood before it with the feeling of peering over the edge of the void. Look long into an abyss, and the abyss looks into you - wasn’t that the expression? It certainly felt like the house was watching them. No longer a place of safety, sanctuary, a home. Just another monster to run from.

To destroy.

Hopper handed her his lighter wordlessly. She didn’t hesitate, taking it and running her thumb over the cool surface. The same lighter he’d used over and over to light her cigarette, the lighter that had been in his hand the moment they kissed for the first time since high school. The lighter that would purge away all the intervening years she’d spent in this house.

God, if she’d even considered this was where she’d be now two weeks prior-

She’d have thought she really was losing her mind. But she had thought that - she really had. More tricks of the shadows. She’d had enough of those now.

She threw it into the pool of gasoline-

-and watched the air explode into flame-

-just as Will and El broke through the trees. Will let out a broken scream at the sight. He bolted forward and then Hopper was holding him back, wrapping strong arms over his torso as her son sobbed in his embrace.

Joyce found herself crying too, crying for all they’d lost, crying for all that had been taken from them. She cried fragments of apologies as Jonathan buried his head in her shoulder, unable to watch, and cried maternal relief as El settled into her side, a child with eyes all too understanding. 

The Byers sobbed into the snowstorm, burnt and reforged in fire and ice with El and Hopper too. Three became five.

And the house burned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> veryy long chapter this time, i hope you like it!! i’m loving the resurgence in the fandom even if it means less interest in this particular fic (with it not being s3 compliant and all) 
> 
> so yeah if this was an episode of the show i would imagine ‘cold’ playing as they watched it burn and then continuing into the credits. high drama lol
> 
> let me know your thoughts!!


	27. Evil & Burnt Gasoline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More discoveries are made and the group faces a new crisis.

It was raining ashes. 

The sky was still dark, the wind still cold, but the snow had ceased. Instead the air was full of a hazy gray smog that tasted of evil and burnt gasoline. 

Joyce contemplated lighting a cigarette, but she thought she’d had enough of ash and smoke to last a lifetime. 

Will and El had gone back to Steve’s house, escorted by Jonathan. The pillar of smoke, even against the stained darkness in the sky, was bound to bring the soldiers running. She wanted the kids as far away as possible when they came. Joyce and Hopper were staying for a while, to make sure the fire had done its work. To make sure the shadow was well and truly gone. 

She was numb. She couldn’t think beyond practicalities, because if she did she wasn’t sure she could manage. She’d only just processed Lonnie, and now the house-

She was numb. 

She leant back against a tree and trained her gaze on the ground, trying  
not to think at all.

“Hey,” Hopper said as he approached, footsteps soft on the melted snow. “The fire’s almost burnt out.”

She met his gaze with an effort. “You walked all the way round?” He nodded. “And nothing survived?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Joyce-“

She cut him off with her blank, ash-stained expression. She couldn’t face platitudes. “And the soldiers?”

“Coming. I heard trucks on the road.” He stepped forward. “Joyce, they let us go- this is our last chance to get away from here. Let them figure out what happened. We don’t have to do this.”

She shook her head. “We do. I don’t trust them but we can’t let them get the wrong impression- they’ll just go around arresting people, hurting them, looking for us or Brenner. No, we have to do this.”

After a moment, he nodded. The embers lit him from behind with soft, fiery light and he looked like he could fight off all the evils of the world for her. “Let’s meet them, then.” He held out a hand and guided her away from the tree, his touch infinitely gentle. He didn’t let go, and his hand was warm in hers as they walked around to what used to be the front of her house. She gave his fingers a squeeze and they shared a warm, symbiotic glance-

Before the soldiers pulled up and crowded the road with guns raised. “Put your hands up!” 

Joyce didn’t move. She was past that, past obeying orders given by those who didn’t understand. Besides, she knew by the spark in her chest that they wouldn’t get a chance to shoot her, if it came to that.

The order was repeated and then Owens appeared, a dim shape in the gloom. “Joyce, Chief- you okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Hopper answered. They were still a good ten yards apart - a sort of fragile, taut no-man’s-land. Guns on one side, the electricity in Joyce’s blood on the other.

“We saw the smoke - what happened? Your place burned down?”

“Look, why don’t you call your goons off, and we can talk.” Hopper’s voice didn’t lose its edge of steel.

She saw Owens sigh, and then make a motion at which the guns were lowered. She let out a breath she hadn’t even realised she was holding as he came forward, hands raised in a placating gesture. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about anyway. But this fire?”

“I set it,” Joyce said. His eyes snapped to her in surprise. “The shadow monster- the house was infected with it. We had to burn it out.”

“We thought that might be the end of it, but apparently not,” Hopper said, indicating the black sky. 

Owens nodded. “Okay, right, well. Joyce, I had a look at some files from back in the day, and I might have a word for you- for your powers. _Ergokinesis.”_

Her confusion must have shown on her face, because he continued. “It means the manipulation of energy. It’s a pretty loose term, but as for what this could mean- Well. I think your power- it’s exactly what’s required to open and close gates. Even more so than Jane’s is.”

The gate. That which had started this whole thing- taken Will away in the first place- was the source of their troubles even now-

The power felt like a great chasm, over which she was leaning - tiptoeing on an icy, tightrope-thin ledge. It could swallow her up - swallow the world up, if what he said was true.

“Our working theory right now is that there’s another gate opened up somewhere, and it’s somehow affecting everything around here. We’re trying to find the gate, and when we do- well, that’s where you come in.”

“You want me to close it.” Her voice was barely a whisper. She remembered the blood on El’s face, in her eyes, the hours upon hours she slept and was still exhausted. The fever she’d had, that Joyce had nursed her through because otherwise she’d start thinking, and never stop. All this because of the gate - and Owens wanted Joyce to do it. Of course she’d do it if it would save El that pain again - but she was afraid. Afraid to lose everything, afraid to move beyond the shattered remnants of her normal life - fragments that were increasingly difficult to hide in.

“Understand that if you do, if you manage it” - Owens’ eyes were serious, and not unkind - “you and your family will be divorced from the Lab completely. All the files will be erased, yours and Jane’s and Will’s, and you’ll get damn good compensation. Enough to support you for life.”

“And if I don’t?”

His face held a wry, humorless smile. “We all die.”

—

The darkness in the sky still hadn’t lifted when they arrived back at Steve’s. The soldiers had let them go, though not before Owens handed them a radio. “It’s fixed on the right channel,” he said. “Make sure you leave it on - we’ll update you when we can.”

Hopper had nodded and taken it from him with a sideways glance at Joyce. She looked tired, worn out. Determined still - but like she wanted this to be over. He did too.

Lucas and Max hurried towards them as they approached the house. They looked nervous, in that permanent state of tension which hung around all of them now. “Chief- Mrs Byers- there’s something you have to see.”

The kids led them round to the pool. (Fucking Harrington with his ridiculous house.) Dustin and Mike were waiting there apprehensively. “Look.”

Hopper looked. 

Floating in the pool were the grisly, grimy remains of Chester. His body was disintegrating, decaying into shadowy pieces like mouldering leaves in the fall. The pool, a rich blue-green, looked tainted by the inky splotch - but it was slowly disappearing. Even the bones were dissolving like the water was acid.

“What the hell happened?”

“It came alive somehow-“

“-Lucas kicked it in the pool-“

“-and now it’s melting-“

“Alright, enough.” Hopper rubbed his temples and tried to resist the stress-induced headache. 

“So- he was alive? He came back to life?” This was Joyce, her voice disbelieving.

“Um- I meant to tell you earlier, but I think he- his grave, he dug himself out of it.” Hopper kept his voice low. Joyce only blinked, inured to the horrors by now. She was becoming numb, like some of the soldiers he’d known in Vietnam - desensitised to brutality by so much exposure to it. He would never have expected the same thing to happen to Joyce - and God, she didn’t deserve it. 

The kids, on the other hand, looked horrified. “So- he’s a zombie? Will’s dog is a zombie now?”

“Not anymore,” Max said, turning her head to indicate the oil spill of shadow that was once a corpse.

“Wait-“ Joyce’s voice was slow with realisation. “I have to talk to Two.”

When he frowned, not comprehending why, she took him aside. “She told me she was possessed too, like Will was, and she got rid of it herself. What if there’s another way to defeat it? Other than heat?”

His frown deepened. He didn’t trust Two, not one inch, and it occurred to him not for the first time that she was leading them on a wild goose chase. Maybe she was in league with the shadow monster, or worse - Brenner. (He distrusted humans more than anything else - because at least the creature was unashamedly evil. Humans, he’d often found, were incurably dishonest.)

But he nodded. “Okay, but I’m coming with you. I don’t care what she says-“ he added, at her expression, “-I don’t trust her.”

Joyce sighed and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “You’re right. God, you’re right, I’m getting too deep into this thing-“

He risked a gentle touch on her wrist. “It’s okay, Joyce. We’re in this together.”

She looked at him with gratitude in her large, dark eyes; simple trust and honest affection. God, they’d come so far.

They found Two sitting in the back of the van, a lazy cigarette hanging from her lips. She eyed them warily but made no move to stand up as they approached.

“You smell like fire,” she remarked. He felt Joyce flinch beside him and he narrowed his eyes.

“Let’s quit with the games, okay? You said you want to help us but you’ve done shit all so far.”

Two stood up. She wasn’t tall, was only a few inches taller than Joyce, but he could feel the strength of her presence. The icy calm she radiated. 

“It’s not so simple as that.”

“Isn’t it?” He let his voice sharpen. 

“No.” She wasn’t intimidated. Her gaze shifted to Joyce’s. “Can’t you control your brute of a boyfriend?”

She flushed and he could feel his own cheeks warming, such that he scowled. “Look, we just want to know-“

“How did you get rid of it?” Joyce’s voice was surprisingly soft. “The shadow monster- how did you get your body back? With Will we burnt it out of him, but…”

The tension in Two’s shoulders seemed to ease. She clenched her jaw and for the first time looked vulnerable - scared, and sad, and human. “I drowned myself,” she whispered. “I had a friend- he resuscitated me- and the damage done to my mind left me bedridden for months- but it worked.”

Hopper winced despite himself. Drowning was an awful death, he knew. The lungs heaving as they filled with fluid, the desperate pain in the chest. It can’t have been easy - and resuscitation was no guarantee. She had nearly died - had all but died - to be free, and he felt newfound respect for this cold, bitter woman.

Meanwhile Joyce seemed deep in thought. “Water,” she whispered. “It’s water.”

Before he could consider what she meant - could think about the possibilities of that - there was a shout and they turned, water forgotten. Joyce rushed to follow the sound and he hurried after her-

-to find Steve. He was slumped on the ground, blood staining his face and hair crimson, with Nancy leaning over him. “Steve- Steve- oh my god,” she said, her voice verging on frantic. “Steve- can you hear me?”

“What happened?” Hopper questioned furiously as Joyce crouched down and gently inspected the wound. 

“I don’t know- I found him like this-“

Jonathan emerged from the shed, only a few feet away, with a grave expression. “Brenner’s gone,” he said.

The words struck Hopper in the chest like awful lightning - like something out of a nightmare. Brenner was gone? Whoever had taken him - because they must have, he was too weak to escape on his own - must have been surprised by Steve, Steve who was probably concussed. And now Brenner was gone. Their last _fucking_ bargaining chip-

“Steve?” Joyce was saying softly, and they all sighed in relief as the kid blinked his eyes open. 

“What happened?” he mumbled, slowly sitting up with a wince.

“Did you see who attacked you?” Hopper asked. It was direct and unsympathetic, but they had no time to lose. They couldn’t afford to have Brenner in the wind, not now, not with everything else - he could even align himself with the shadow monster, and then they really would all be lost. 

Steve slowly shook his head. 

“Fuck,” Hopper hissed, and Joyce glared up at him, made a shushing motion. She and Nancy helped the kid up and then guided him inside, leaving Hopper alone to mull over this latest crisis. What the fuck were they gonna do now? It was all swirling around in his mind - Brenner, water, Two-

Two. Was this Two’s fault? Two and Eight? Had they cooked this up together? Eight could easily do it, she had the power- and it was only their word to say they weren’t still working with Brenner.

He strode around the house to find Kali sitting on Steve’s trash cans with her legs up, watching Axel smoke two cigarettes at once. It was a relaxed, jokey image, but at the angry tempest Hopper brought with him they both immediately tensed. “Did you have something to do with this?”

“What’s the matter, Indy?” Axel sneered. Hopper ignored him completely, directing the ire of his gaze at Eight.

“If you’re accusing me of something, you ought to tell me what it is,” she said. Her voice was calm but her eyes were sharp.

“Brenner. He’s gone.”

“He’s _gone?”_ Axel said, at the same time as Kali yelled in frustration.

“Jane was wrong- we should never have trusted you, or Six, or any of you- we should have killed him when we had the chance-“

“How do I know you didn’t have something to do with it?”

Kali stared. “You think- you really think- God. You’re even more stupid than I thought. I hate him, more than anything in this world - you can’t seriously think I would want him free.”

“Maybe you killed him, then.” Hopper knew he likely wasn’t being fair but the horrified anger in his blood was begging to be directed at someone. “Maybe you got tired of waiting. You went over there- you made some illusion-“

Axel scoffed with outrage. “Oh, now that’s some bullshit-“

“Stop!” El’s voice rang out loud and clear. They all turned to see her looking fierce and angry, backlit in the gloom. “I’ll find him.”

“El- no-“

“Jane, it’s not safe-“

“I’ll find him,” she insisted. “Otherwise you’ll never trust each other, and you have to. We all have to trust each other.”

Nausea rose up in his throat, but El had a mind and a will of her own, both like steel. He couldn’t stop her. 

So they all went inside and she sat cross-legged on the floor. Everyone was suddenly there - all the kids appeared as if out of nowhere. Only Steve and Nancy were absent. He frowned when El produced her thick black blindfold from her pocket - she’d been carrying it around with her? - and raised it to her eyes. 

“Wait- El-“ Mike said, voice abortive and soft. She looked up at him with wide eyes. “Stay safe.”

She nodded, and the blindfold descended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so i have news! i am hosting the first ever jopper big bang. writer sign ups open this coming wednesday so go ahead and check it out:
> 
> https://jopperbigbang.tumblr.com/post/186358018341/welcome-to-the-first-to-my-knowledge-jopper-big
> 
> it's going to be a really exciting event and i'm hoping for as much turn out as possible :)
> 
>  
> 
> this chapter was quite a slow one to write, as kind of a filler between action scenes, but stay tuned for shit going down next chapter. and let me know what you think!!


	28. Null and Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> El is trapped in the void as they face a new attack.

El stepped out into the dark. The inky surface rippled soundlessly below her, as it always did. She took a moment, felt the empty silence and let it calm her trembling nerves. She wasn’t sure she was ready to do this - to face him, yet again. Knowing he might be able to reach back. (She still wasn’t sure how he’d found her, that time.)

“Brenner,” she whispered into the dark. Like she’d have more control if she put words to it, like she was diminishing him from the ghostly spectre of _Papa_. Just Brenner. 

And there he was. 

He was running, stumbling slightly as if supported on one side. Her void moved around him, so it seemed he was running forever in one place - and suddenly she had to repress a snigger. It did indeed look comical - the ragged desperation, the legs pedalling desperately - but she had to concentrate. (She briefly reflected how good it felt to laugh at him, after so long of fear.) 

She tried to locate him. She felt his surroundings - there were flashes of snowy trees, leaves crunching underfoot, a bitter wind. Tried to force into view his companion - a woman, certainly, with light hair flashing, but she was beyond El’s reach. Where were they? In the woods, for sure, but they must be quite far. He was faded, flickering in and out of view, which rarely happened no matter how far-

And then he disappeared. 

The dark began to twist and coil around her, no longer empty but full - full and suffocating. She tried to open her eyes, to escape, but she was being dragged down, and down, and down-

The rippling liquid below her opened up and swallowed her.

—

As El toppled over and began to bleed Mike started to yell. “El! _El!”_ He called her name, over and over, but she didn’t wake. Didn’t surface out of that dark void. 

Hopper reached forward, touched her arm. God, he’d known all this might catch up with her one day, but now- it was the worst time of all. She was bleeding even heavier than usual, crying tears of blood, and when they tugged the blindfold away he could see that her eyes were rolled up into her skull. 

He felt the sting of panic, now. “El,” he murmured himself, but to no avail. He shared a glance with Joyce and saw that she, too, was terrified - eyes wide, hands trembling. Because El wasn’t Will - no one was - but Joyce cared for her like she was her daughter, like she was _more_. And worse than all that-

This felt like Sara and Diane, all over again. Watching Sara have that first awful fit, Diane trembling beside him. Begging to be comforted when he wasn’t even capable of comforting himself. And he couldn’t watch another daughter die in front of him - he _couldn’t-_

“I’m going in to find her,” Joyce said softly beside him. He whipped around to look at her, saw out of the corner of his eye everyone else looking just as alarmed. “I can do it. I can bring her out.”

“Mom-” Will’s voice shook. “Are you sure? El’s been doing this for so long- this is so new for you-”

Joyce shook her head stubbornly. And as if to prove her point, El began to shake in Mike’s arms, her trembles so violent that Hopper had to look away. No matter that she was taller, and stronger, and with darker hair - all he could see was Sara, dying, _leaving him._ “El,” he croaked, in an effort to pull himself out of the memory. It was El seizing in front of him, not Sara. Not a ghost, but a girl he had to keep alive.

But Joyce-

What if they were both trapped? What if he lost them both? God, he couldn’t face that, he couldn’t. It would be beyond anything he’d experienced before - Diane, and Sara, but a thousand times worse. El and Joyce were the foundations upon which he’d built stability, a home - and if they were both ripped away-

“I can find her,” Joyce repeated. Her confidence was alarming, if infectious - and she looked him directly in the eyes unshakably. “I’ll be fine.”

He scrubbed a nervous hand over his beard. “Okay,” he said, “but if anything happens-”

“Hop, I’ll be fine,” she repeated, lips shaping into a slight smile. And then he stiffened in surprise when she kissed him lightly, right there in front of everyone- but he couldn’t help but melt into it, every fibre crying out as she pulled away. “I’ll be fine,” she said again, and were those tears in her eyes?

But then she took El’s hand with steely resolve, and closed her eyes.

They all waited in fraught silence. There was a clock on Steve’s mantelpiece that was ticking incessantly, so loud Hopper felt it drilling into his skull. He had to clench his fists to prevent himself from smashing it on the floor. The tension was thick, palpable. All the onlookers’ faces matched - alert, afraid. Max was squeezing Lucas’ hand so hard that he winced.

And the silence stretched on.

Joyce was unmoving, a slow trickle of blood working its way down her lip. She was clutching at El’s wrist in one hand, Hopper’s fingers in another, like she was balancing on a tightrope. Silent and still.

After at least five minutes of this - it was impossible not to count, not with that fucking clock ticking away - he couldn’t take it anymore. “Joyce,” he whispered.

“Wait,” Mike said, but Jonathan shook his head.

“No, we’re getting her out of there, what if they both get trapped-”

“Joyce,” Hopper repeated, a little louder. She stiffened, but didn’t open her eyes. He could only imagine what was happening there, inside her head, in another world, the void - couldn’t even picture it. Darkness, stretching out in all directions. As far as the eye could see. It sounded like the landscape of nightmares, and for Joyce and El to be stuck in it - for El to have gone there, so many times, at such a young age - it made something cold twist in his chest.

But then there was a noise outside - a crash, like the clatter of the trash cans falling over - and the lights began to flicker. “Oh, shit,” Dustin said, as Jonathan rose and went to the window.

“There’s something out there,” he said. The kids were watching the flickering lights with hunted expressions and Hopper fumbled for his gun, trying his best to load it without letting go of Joyce’s hand. What if _it_ was here? What if the mind flayer had reached through the void and found them, found El and Joyce? Trapped them in there while it finished off their family, their friends? 

Steve came stumbling into the room, supported heavily by Nancy, and asked thickly, “What’s going on?”

“Do you have any weapons?” Hopper asked. No time for questions. The flickering was getting worse, and he felt sure that soon they’d be plunged into darkness entirely.

“Uh… Think my dad has a gun, in a safe in the study… And I guess there’s the shovels in the shed…”

“Do you have a key?” 

“What?” Steve was clearly not functioning. And with Joyce and El out of the picture, and the kids being, well, _kids_ , it was up to Hopper and Nancy and Jonathan alone. (Because he really, truly, still didn’t know where Kali, Two and Axel stood.)

“Do you have a key? To the safe?” He let his frantic impatience bleed into his tone. Steve shook his head. “Fuck!” 

“I’ll get the stuff from the shed,” Jonathan said, already halfway out the door.

“Be careful!” Hopper yelled after him. Jesus Christ. Joyce seemed to hear this, to flinch from the volume, but still her eyes stayed closed. He pulled her closer, felt the panic build as she continued to fail to respond.

“He’s coming.”

Everyone whipped around. Will was staring outside sightlessly, frozen in place save for a tremor in his hands. Two stood up and joined him by the window, her posture matching his in the eeriest of ways. After a moment she nodded.

“He’s coming,” she repeated, voice barely a whisper. She turned, looked straight at Kali who until now had been watching all this silently. “We have to hold him off.”

Kali said nothing for a moment, before nodding. “Axel has a gun,” she said, standing up and pushing her sleeves up, “and I will use my powers.”

Her gaze swept the room before landing on Hopper and resting on him for a long, piercing moment. He felt the force of it - all the anger, the violence, the _loneliness_ behind those dark eyes - and held it, not even daring to blink. Finally he nodded at her, a sort of reconciliation after his accusations. If she fought for them - if she was willing to risk her life for them - then maybe she wasn’t the villain he’d made her out to be. Maybe he could understand why El called her _sister_. 

She nodded back. 

And then there was another crash- the sound of breaking glass- and all the lights shut off completely, the kids letting out yelps of fear, and in the middle of it all-

He felt Joyce go slack against him. She tumbled into his arms and he caught her, whispered her name frantically over and over again in the chaos. El- and Joyce- they really were lost, if it came down to a fight. El had always been the one to save them, every single goddamn time, and with Joyce out of action as well-

And more than that, he couldn’t lose them. _He couldn’t lose them._

But now he had to keep them safe, while they fought some invisible battle he couldn’t touch. So he pressed a kiss into Joyce’s hair, found El’s hand in the dark and squeezed it. Then he stood up, readied his gun. Found Will in the chaos and grabbed him by the shoulder - “I need you to keep El and your mom safe, okay? Stay inside with them. _Stay inside.”_

Jonathan burst through the door, face already bloodied, and slammed three shovels and an axe down on the floor. “What’s happening out there?” Lucas asked. He was readying his slingshot in the gloom.

“God, I don’t- I can’t-” Jonathan seemed at a loss for words. “It’s like something out of a nightmare. All these people- but they’re not _themselves_ , and some of them are just corpses- like Chester-”

Like Chester. Jesus, were they dealing with goddamn _zombies_? Like something out of _Night of the Living Dead_? He almost wanted to laugh. After everything that had been thrown at them in the past, he shouldn’t really be surprised, but still. But _still_. 

“So how are we doing this? Are we meeting them out there on the offensive, or are we gonna defend the house?” Nancy’s tone was deadly sharp. She had her own gun out, ready in her hand by her side. 

“Uh…” He tried to think. Tried to strategise like a commander, not a desperately worried father and partner.

“We should go on the offensive,” Jonathan said decisively. After a moment, Hopper nodded. He was right. They should focus the attack, because they hadn’t had time to fortify the house - the zombies (fucking zombies, for god’s sake) would come at them on all sides unless they struck out first.

“You with us?” he asked, looking at Kali and Axel. Two had picked up a shovel, wielding it experimentally. They all nodded. “Alright, none of you kids are going anywhere, understood?”

“Now wait a second-” Max started, but Hopper was immoveable.

“No, you’re all gonna stay here, where it’s safe, and you’re gonna protect El and Joyce. You hear me? If something happens to us-”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Will and Jonathan exchange a fraught, nervous glance.

“If something happens to us, you’re their last line of defence. Okay? So _stay here_.”

After a beat they all nodded. And he turned to the door with a deep breath, the gun feeling all too familiar in his hands. Kali had somehow ended up beside him, and she looked up at him with a glint in her eyes. She was excited about this, he realised. Her small frame was thrumming with it. 

“I can’t do anything to hurt them, you realise?” she said softly. “I can distract and confuse, but you all must do the heavy lifting.”

He nodded. “Stay at the back, then.” So she dropped back, to be replaced by Nancy. “You ready?” he asked, and smiled grimly when she nodded. He’d expected nothing less.

And they charged forward into the breach.

\--

“El! _El!_ El, where are you?”

Joyce’s voice was growing hoarse. She broke off her frantic calls and looked around the empty black desperately. There was no sign of the girl, though she’d been searching for what felt like an eternity. She was alone in the void.

On the brink of giving up, suddenly she spotted something in the distance. Some patch of light on the dark horizon. She hurried towards it, the dark surface rippling beneath her feet. When she drew closer she had to swallow a gasp, a sudden jolt of alarm in her chest, because it was her house. 

Still standing, like she hadn’t burnt it to the ground only a few hours ago. She stared at it, approached it warily. There were sheets hanging on the washing line, fluttering in the non-existent breeze, and she ducked under them with a frown on her face. It was eerily silent, lit in that awful grey pallor that seemed to occupy the void. She stepped onto the porch, ran a hand down the wooden post by the door. She flinched as there was a sting on her palm and she brought it up to her face to see a splinter.

Real, tangible. Whatever was going on here, it was beyond anything they’d dealt with before. 

Hesitantly she pushed the door open. It was unlocked. And while the exterior of the house had been a perfect copy of what it was like in life - tired, shabby, but just plain old bricks and mortar - the interior was a different story. The wallpaper, the floor, all of it was barely visible, covered in matted, tangled darkness. More of the tendrils she’d seen in the real house, not this pale copy, that she’d watched the flames consume. She had to take a breath at the sight. This very living room, that very dining room, that very kitchen - it was where she’d raised her children, and now it was all but consumed by shadow.

It hadn’t hit her, not really. Not when she was out there in the woods watching the flames lick up the walls. It had been one in a series of actions, steps she’d had to take in fighting the forces that threatened her family. But now-

It was like someone wanted her to see this. To reflect.

As she made this realisation, however, the room began to melt away. The shadow turned to swirls of dust around her and when the floor disappeared she didn’t land on the dark liquid’s surface but kept on falling, down, down, and down-

She didn’t land, but rather lurched up as if from some awful nightmare. She gasped, trying to recover from the horrid swooping sensation that still resided in her chest, and looked up-

Straight into El’s eyes. “Joyce,” she said, and her face was tearstained. “Joyce, I don’t know where we are.”

Joyce sat up, surveyed her surroundings. They were outside, in the woods somewhere, and snow was falling from the darkened sky. They could be anywhere, she realised. Anywhere at all. In the void or somewhere else. 

She stood up, brushed the snow off her clothes, and tugged El into a long, full embrace. “God, I was so worried when I couldn’t find you.”

“I heard you calling, but no matter how fast I ran- I couldn’t reach you-”

“It’s okay,” she said, at the distress visible on the girl’s face. “We’re here together now. Wherever here is.”

She took El’s hand and began to walk, picking her way gingerly over the snowy roots and branches. There was nothing to be gained from just standing there, after all. The air was bitterly cold, but there was no wind - only the snow. The interminable snow, which they hadn’t been able to escape for days. Snow, in April.

After a while they came to the edge of the trees, to a half-ruined building that loomed out of the snow so suddenly El jumped. Joyce went forward, leaving the girl behind, and peered around the corner-

And flinched back with heart pounding, because it was Brenner. Fucking Brenner- there, in the snow, slumped against the ruined wall.

There was a woman with him. Blonde, tall, and somehow familiar to Joyce, though she wasn’t sure why. They were speaking in hushed whispers and despite herself she leaned closer, curious with adrenaline.

“You did a good job, you know,” Brenner was saying. God, even his voice- Joyce wanted to sweep around the corner, to throttle him with her bare goddamn hands. “Beginning clean-up, even if it was curtailed rather abruptly.”

The woman laughed. “You mean Byers? Oh, he was easy.”

Joyce felt cold. Was she talking about Lonnie? Was it her who had killed him? Made Joyce’s life that much more complicated? (Or simple, depending on how you looked at it.)

“Easy, yes. The others won’t be. They’re too well protected - Six and Eleven are too strong.”

“Which is why,” the woman settled down beside him, “we let the shadow creature pick them off. And from what we’ve seen, it’s not unintelligent. It can be bargained with.”

“To what end?” Brenner mused, face thoughtful. Joyce felt ill.

“Well, isn’t the power of the dark dimension what we’ve been trying to harness all this time? I’m sure there’s something the creature wants. We can make a trade.”

“And I’d be back in favor,” he said. “Reagan won’t be laughing anymore, will he? Not if I return triumphant with all that power behind me.”

“Fuck Reagan,” the woman said, but it wasn’t in the tone with which Joyce herself had said the same in the past. It was cold, and selfish. Power-hungry. “You could be President, if you wanted. You could do anything.”

“Anything,” Brenner repeated.

And the world dissolved into shadow once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i know i keep on changing the chapter number lol i promise it's not gonna be more than 33 now
> 
> in other news sign ups are open for the jopper big bang! go here: https://forms.gle/9wooSgvYx37DEaNh6 to sign up as a writer :)
> 
> things heat up!! let me know what you think, as always xx


	29. Night of the Living Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper and the others have a fight on their hands while Joyce and El struggle to escape the Mind Flayer.

It had stopped snowing - thank God. Hopper was grateful for small mercies. Snow would have made the chaos of that night all the more brutal, all the more confusing. Was it night yet? Or was it night permanently now? Would they all have to live in darkness forever, now?

He ducked the blow of some half-formed carcass and shot it twice, two rounds straight into the decaying skull. It fell to the ground and lay twitching, probably soon to get up again, to come at him _again-_

‘Nam, New York, Brenner - none of it had anything on this. This was horrific beyond description. In ‘Nam he’d seen flesh melting, children screaming, explosions tearing muscle from bone and lungs bubbling with blood, but at least the dead had stayed dead. Another small mercy.

“Hopper!” someone shouted and he turned in time to dodge another swing from another rotting corpse. He wondered, absently, what Hawkins Cemetery looked like now. Neat rows of graves all overturned. Headstones lying in pieces in the snow. 

He raised his gun but could only stare in horror as it refused to fire. Maybe he was out- maybe it was jammed- but all he could do was tug at the trigger in vain as the corpse came at him again-

Then it crumpled to the ground, Jonathan’s axe sticking out of its head. The kid was standing there, eyes wild, breathless. He crouched down and grabbed the axe, now bloody and gruesome, and gave Hopper a sort of manic grin. “It’s not getting up again,” he said, and disappeared back into the fray. 

Hopper fiddled with his gun a little more with shaking hands, before cursing and turning it around. He’d have to use it as just a blunt object, now, but it was better than nothing. 

Then Kali appeared out of thin air beside him. She gave him a critical look, and he noticed that her face was splattered with blood. Whether it was hers he wasn’t sure. “Your gun is broken?”

He nodded, and seemingly out of nowhere (though it was real, tangible this time) she handed him a baseball bat. It was spiked, nails haphazardly hammered into it, and he thought he vaguely recognised it - was it Steve’s? Maybe Jonathan’s? But he took it and tried to will the muscle memory of baseball back in highschool to come back to him. Tested the weight of it experimentally. It could do some damage, that was for sure.

And then he had a chance to test it, because one of the creatures grabbed Kali by the arm and he swung the bat down, hard, with a sickening crunch that left the corpse prostrate on the ground. “Thanks,” she said breathlessly, inspecting her freshly bloodied arm with something like distaste. He hoped this infection- disease- whatever the fuck it was- wasn’t catching.

They didn’t seem to be hungry, like in zombie movies. They had no interest in living flesh. But they were violent, and with some sort of one-track hive mind - to destroy. They were congregating in a massive swarm that only kept growing and it would only be so long before they found some other way into the house, and attacked El and Joyce and the kids-

“Hopper!” someone was yelling. He whipped around to see Dustin leaning out of an upstairs window, making frantic signs. But the fight going on around him was loud and chaotic and it was too dark for him to read the kid’s lips. 

“What is it?” he yelled back, then whipped around to dispatch a corpse creeping up on him from behind. Blood spattered - whose, he didn’t know. 

Suddenly Nancy was beside him. She was holding her arm at an awkward angle, face taut with pain, but she looked up at Dustin and seemed to understand. “Hose,” she said. “He’s saying ‘hose.’”

“Hose? What-” But then he looked around and saw the hosepipe coiled against the wall, thought of _water_ , Two and Chester in the pool-

He rushed forward, ducking and shoving his way through the fray, and grabbed it with both hands. This couldn’t work - could it? It couldn’t be that easy. No way. Just water- and yet-

He turned it on. The jet was strong, violent, and when he directed it at the zombies-

They all drew back, hissing as if burned. Like the water was acid to them, and then he had to wonder - why water? Why now? He was sure it hadn’t had any impact on the demodogs the previous year. But for now these thoughts were irrelevant because the teens were flagging, exhausted, bleeding, and somehow he’d found the creatures’ weakness. 

He spotted one frozen carcass scrambling up a drainpipe, trying to reach Dustin’s window. Its movements were slow, shambling, gruesome to watch. Hopper directed the stream of water at it and it flailed, fell with a crunch to the ground.

“Indy!” Axel shouted, and he whipped around to see Jonathan pinned down. His movements were desperate, trying to stave off another awful rotting corpse. Hopper thrust the hose towards them and Jonathan scrambled away, hair dripping into his eyes.

It was working, but there were too many of them. Too many of them, and only one hose, and some of the horde were spreading out, testing the house for weaknesses. Finding windows and doors to be broken open. They were smart, smarter than the zombies you got in shitty horror movies. They moved with a sort of singular purpose despite their grotesque appearance. And he couldn’t let them breach the house- he couldn’t-

But the horde was winning.

And then, out of the throng, a face emerging from the gloom. God, a face they’d only just put to rest. Still sneering and unchanged as he had been in life, because it had only been a day and it was too cold for bloat.

The corpse of Lonnie Byers shambled towards the house.

—

One of the corpses had smashed a window round the back - Jonathan heard it, loud and clear - and so he hurried away from the others, clutching the axe with white-knuckle grip. The instinct to protect - protect Will, his mom, El - was overwhelming.

When he followed it into the house, however, he found it already dispatched on the floor. Max was standing above it, an empty water bottle in her right hand and a shovel in her left. 

“You okay?” he asked, taking the moment to straighten up and catch his breath. 

She nodded. “Dustin figured out that water can stop them. We found some empty bottles and we’re filling them up.”

“Okay, I-“ He looked around at the shattered window, glass everywhere. An easy entrance. “I’m gonna find something to cover this.”

As he was looking, debating maybe going upstairs for a mattress and hoping nothing got in in the meantime, he heard a footstep crunch on the fragments of glass and whipped around, raising the axe with a grip so tight his hands trembled, heart thudding-

It was Lonnie.

Holy shit, it was Lonnie.

Jonathan’s brain short circuited. It was Lonnie- but it couldn’t be Lonnie- Lonnie was dead- but the dead had come alive-

He looked the same. A little pale, maybe, but nothing like those grotesque rotting corpses. He looked human. Real, not like special effects makeup in horror movies. 

But his eyes-

They’d never been friendly, especially not to Jonathan. Always some trace of sadism or disgust. He’d never looked at his son with love, not once. But this was something different. There was not a hint of recognition in those hated eyes. Instead there was something darker, something ancient and aloof. Something that promised untold horrors.

Jonathan had never been face to face with the shadow monster before, he realised. He’d faced the demogorgon, sure, but that was just an animal. A lackey. This- there was a primal evil right here, staring at him from his dad’s face.

His fingers felt numb. He wanted to raise the axe- swing it- but he couldn’t force himself to move-

Lonnie, the thing wearing Lonnie’s face, advanced. Reaching out hands- no doubt to claw his eyes out- rip out his heart- and Jonathan was frozen-

The expected blow never came. Lonnie thudded to the floor ungracefully, finally, dead a second time. Jonathan slowly uncurled from the cowered position he’d taken (shamefully, because he hadn’t cowered away from Lonnie in years) to see-

Will.

He was trembling, chest heaving and eyes shining with fresh tears, but he was clutching at his shovel with a grip like steel. 

“Will-“ Jonathan started. God, this was a whole new mess. Will- killing Lonnie- Will, who had always loved their father the most. “You okay?” 

He shuddered, eyes fixed on Lonnie’s unmoving corpse. 

“Will, you saved me,” Jonathan said. He couldn’t let Will crumble into guilt- not over Lonnie. He wasn’t worth it. He was- he _had been_ an asshole.

Will’s gaze finally lifted. His eyes were unreadable but the tremors in his hands slowly ceased, and he let the shovel slide to the floor. He wiped at his eyes hurriedly, like he didn’t want Jonathan to see, and Jonathan ached to catch his hands and stop him. Tell him he was allowed to cry, something Lonnie never told either of them. He was allowed to cry, even if it was over this asshole.

But then he looked up, and his face was determined. “Jonathan- I think I can get them out. Mom and El. I can get them out.”

Jonathan looked at him long and hard. What if they lost him too- but he seemed so sure- “How?”

“The Mind Flayer. When it- when it was me, I think it left a piece of it with me. I think I can use that somehow, to find them and save them.”

It didn’t make any sense to Jonathan, but then again none of this did. Monsters and shadows and the living dead- each year, it seemed to get weirder. Weirder and scarier. Changing their lives a little bit more every time.

“Okay, but if something happens-” 

Will hurried past him to join Joyce and El and Jonathan hoped he wasn’t making a horrible mistake. Then he swung around, raising the axe as there was another crash and the sound of horrible hammering on the windows, the walls. They would break through soon enough, and then they’d all be lost. (He could feel the sting of the cut on his cheek, still burning, still sharp. He’d be lucky if that was all he escaped with.)

And then he was struck by a thought.

He rushed into the kitchen and found the radio Owens had given the Chief, that he’d left forgotten when shit had hit the fan. One channel, wasn’t that what Hopper had said? Only one. He hurried to switch it on and held it close, glancing around furtively in case one of the creatures decided on a surprise attack. He was wary of revealing their location, after all that had happened to them, to his mom especially - but he was desperate. They were desperate, because if Will couldn’t help El and Joyce then they really all might die tonight.

\--

Will stepped out into the dark. 

He didn’t like it here. It reminded him too much of the Upside Down, only worse because it was so empty - empty, blank, lonely. If he wasn’t so determined, so scared for his mom, for El, he might have turned back. But he didn’t. He ignored the sudden pounding of his heart.

He could have chosen to focus on the images of El and his mom to find them in the dark, but somewhere deep within him he knew it wouldn’t work. Instead - based purely on instinct - he knelt down in the still liquid and pressed his face to it.

He tumbled down into the dark depths of the void.

He landed on something soft and wet - mud, he realised as he stood up and brushed off his clothes. The air was warm and damp, heavy with the scent of oncoming rain, and around him were swaying tall fronds of grass. He looked up at the sky and indeed it was dark with storm clouds. A towering column of them was approaching over the grassy plain, bringing with them a hazy curtain of rain. And there was the sound of thunder, occasionally so loud he had to clap his hands over his ears.

Where was he? It didn’t look like Hawkins, at least not now in the dark and the snow. Here it was light, if dull, like a stormy summer afternoon. 

And that wasn’t the only thing. He could feel something - something dark and heavy, all around. In the air, in the ground, in him. Like something rising under his skin. It was like being part of a network - like the hive mind again, from back in November, when he’d felt it all so keenly. Sharply, like his and the shadow monster’s minds were one. 

But it wasn’t so oppressive, now. He didn’t feel overpowered, trapped by the connection. The Mind Flayer didn’t seem so strong, so forceful. Will felt almost like its equal. 

And then he realised why. Where before each tendril of shadow had been purposeful, strong, like the many legs of a spider, now it was like a net. Blanketing Hawkins, and maybe even further. Stretched too thin.

He didn’t want to stay here. The shadow, the storm cloud, it wasn’t oppressive any longer but it still felt malicious, evil. So now he concentrated, thought of Joyce and El, and when he looked around he saw them running through the grass together towards him.

“Will,” Joyce said, voice breaking. “How are you here? What-”

“Where are we?” El asked. She was looking at the approaching storm apprehensively. 

“I think-” Will took a deep breath. “I think we’re in the shadow monster’s mind. Or- what counts as its mind. I can feel it-” he turned to his mom “- I can feel it, its intentions, its weaknesses. It’s like before.”

“How do we get out?” she whispered. 

He opened his mouth to respond - though what he would say he didn’t know, because it wasn’t something he could put in words - but then everything, the field, El, his mom, it all disappeared and all he could see was a tear opening in the black. Burning bright like the sun, only bad, wrong, evil. The fabric between dimensions being torn open forcibly and the shadows crowding in, almost jostling for position to invade his world.

Then the vision disappeared and he was back in the field, his mom touching his arm with panic on her face. They both looked at him in askance but he couldn’t stay here any longer - the connection with the Mind Flayer, it was too raw.

So he took both of their hands and somehow, he didn’t know how, just _tugged-_

And surfaced back in Steve’s living room, gasping like he’d been underwater. Joyce and El looked similarly worn out, similarly disturbed, and both their noses were bleeding - his too, he realised when he wiped at it. He had to think, had to work out the meaning behind what he’d seen, but then there was the sound of breaking glass and suddenly the room was overrun with people - no, not people. Corpses.

He scrambled across the floor, trying to go for the shovel he’d dropped in the corridor - why had he dropped it, what was he thinking - and hoping he’d go unnoticed as he brushed past the creatures’ decaying legs. His mom was shouting his name but he had to get the weapon- had to defend himself, protect them-

And then there was a burst of light and the zombies were thrown away from them. He stared in amazement and slowly stood up to see Joyce and El, hand in hand. The rest of the party were already here and the others came rushing in - Hopper, Jonathan, Nancy, Steve, even Kali and Two - and he realised that somehow they’d defeated the whole horde, all at once. And he marvelled in awe at the combined power of his mother and his sister, together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote all this today lol i have been pretty behind on the chapter writing but i'm doing my best to keep them on schedule :) we're nearly there!! not long left now...
> 
> and yes, i had to give will his moments to shine like s3 didn't. now if only i could get noah to act this out...
> 
> let me know what you think!! xx


	30. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They form a plan to defeat the Mind Flayer once and for all.

Owens arrived too late, in the end. He’d responded quickly, Joyce could credit him with that. He’d arrived only fifteen minutes after Jonathan had radioed, only it was five minutes too late. The horde was dead, really dead this time, so the only enemy left to defeat was their all-consuming exhaustion.

“Joyce, you alright?” he asked when he saw her curled into Hopper’s side on Steve’s sofa, carding her hands through Will’s hair, who had his head in her lap. 

She nodded, though her head was pounding and she wanted nothing more than to fall asleep with her head on Hopper’s shoulder. But this wasn’t over, not yet. She knew that better than any of them. 

“Where are the rest of your guys?” Hopper asked. She scanned the room and the yard outside through the glass of the doors and found that he was right - Owens had brought far less men with him than he had back at the ashes of her house a few hours ago. 

He shifted a little uncomfortably. “We’ve got a… situation… happening right now. We’re handling it.”

“What kind of situation?”

“I told you, it’s all under control. But looks like you didn’t need the help in the end, huh?”

She sighed and looked over at El, slumped into Hopper’s other side. She was exhausted and the terror of what they’d seen, trapped in the void, didn’t help. Joyce wasn’t exactly feeling peachy either. And Will was almost delirious with fatigue. So really it would have been better for all of them if Owens had shown up earlier - but it was too late now.

“There’s something you need to know. We’ve been looking for the gate’s possible location - and we can’t find it. Joyce, there isn’t a gate.”

She sat up a little straighter, heart pounding at his words. “What?”

“But how is all this happening then?” Hopper glanced at her and his eyes mirrored what she felt - fear, confusion, weariness.

“Our working theory is that the Upside Down - that’s what you call it, right? - is somehow bleeding into Hawkins, like…” He was clearly struggling to find the right analogy.

“Filter paper.” This was Will, who sat up with an effort and took a deep breath. “Like filter paper, right? The shadow monster’s main power is left in the Upside Down but some distilled essence of it can get through.”

Owens looked impressed. “Yeah, kid, like that. Exactly like that. All the stuff that’s happened here before must have made the boundary between dimensions weaker. What gets through isn’t very powerful but it can influence our environment somehow. The weather, the dogs-”

“And the zombies?” Hopper’s eyebrows climbed. “It’s gotta take more than a ‘distilled essence’ to do that.”

Owens scrubbed a hand over his face. “Honestly? I don’t know. All this is conjecture. There’s also the suggestion that all the numbers have some sort of connection with the shadow creature. That might be why it’s able to get in.”

Joyce nodded despite herself. “That makes sense.”

Hopper’s gaze snapped to her. “What?”

“Well, think about it. El and me - we were trapped in the void. That’s never happened before. And we saw all these things - I think the shadow creature wanted us to see them. I saw my house, and we saw Brenner.” His eyes sharpened. Yeah, she probably should have mentioned that earlier. “He was at this abandoned old building - I think it’s near the quarry.” Only a couple miles away.”

“Well, we gotta go get him.”

“Hang on, Jim.” Owens had raised a warning hand. “Brenner is our responsibility, not yours. And- well- you gotta be careful about what you’re walking into. You said the shadow creature wanted you to see him?”

She nodded. “You think it’s a trap?”

“Fuck,” Hopper hissed. “So- what? So we can’t get him? We just have to sit here?”

“Wait.” Will turned to Joyce, his eyes whirring with the beginnings of an idea. “The Mind Flayer- it showed me something else. But I don’t think it meant me to see it.”

“What was it?”

“I think it was a gate opening. Only I saw it from _his_ side. This… tear was being created, and the shadow was right there, waiting to break through. So that’s what he wants. A gate to be opened. I don’t think he can do it himself.”

Joyce tried not to frown at Will’s sudden use of _he_ , instead of _it_. It wouldn’t help. “So, what, we have to prevent this gate being opened?”

To her shock he shook his head. “No, no, I think- I think we should give him what he wants.”

She felt cold. God, what if- what if this was like before, when Will hadn’t been Will? When he’d been a spy, an agent? What if he was leading them into another trap? Unconsciously she pulled away from him a little.

“Mom-” His voice was desperate. “Mom, you’re not listening to me. We open it and we attack him head on. We stop him once and for all.”

“Will, I don’t know-”

“Maybe he’s right.” Hopper was sitting forward, face deadly serious, eyes intent. “Water, right? Its weakness is water, that’s what you said.”

She nodded. 

“He’s stretched too thin this time. And without a gate to strengthen him, he’s weaker than before. Which means we can defeat him.”

“It means we shouldn’t open the gate,” she said, watching Will warily. God, she didn’t want to suspect him- she really didn’t- but suddenly all she could think of was his fingers on her throat, choking her, way back in November in that burning, blistering room. 

“No, but think about it.” Hopper looked at her with an earnest expression. “What if we could somehow flood the Upside Down?”

“You mean opening a gate in some kind of body of water?” Owens’ voice was thoughtful. “It could work.”

Joyce was silent for a moment, thoughts racing. Sure, it could work, but what if it didn’t? What if they were just letting the shadow back in? It could be the end of everything - their world as they knew it-

And yet-

They all needed this to be over. And none of them had any better ideas - any other ideas at all. And maybe it would work. Maybe. Tentatively she allowed herself to hope. Allowed herself to picture being free of all this fear, the ever-looming threat, the ever-present instinct for fight or flight. She’d have to find a new house, once all this was over. (Nevermind that she wasn’t sure she could ever sleep without Hopper by her side again.) She wasn’t looking forward to that. But to relax with her children- to finally be able to kiss Hopper without constantly looking over her shoulder- 

Maybe she was willing to take a few risks for that. 

“We’d have to make some sort of distraction,” she said finally. Will looked surprised that she’d agreed. “To draw the shadow creature’s attention away.”

“Brenner,” Hopper said. “We fool it into thinking we’re falling into its trap by going after Brenner, while you and El go to open the gate in, say, Lovers’ Lake.”

It was crazy, foolhardy, a hopeless plan - but maybe, just maybe, it would work.

Owens had been watching them with a thoughtful expression, the occasional nod, but then his radio crackled to life and he stepped away, listening to it urgently. Joyce watched him through narrowed eyes. She still wasn’t sure she trusted him. He returned looking worried and urgent, rubbing his hands together, and she noticed they were trembling. 

“I gotta go. Our… situation… just got a hell of a lot worse. Don’t do anything until I get back, okay? You’re gonna need reinforcements whatever you do.”

Hopper nodded silently, eyes unreadable, and Owens hurried off. “What do you think is going on?” Joyce asked quietly. 

Hopper shook his head. “I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”

“Are we really just gonna sit here and wait?” This was Jonathan, who had clearly been listening to the entire exchange. He was bandaging Nancy’s arm, his own face marred by a long narrow band aid. 

“Wait,” Joyce said and dragged herself to her feet. She rushed after Owens, ignoring the others’ confusion around her. There was some suspicion collecting like a cloud in her mind, some misgiving in her chest that she’d long since learnt not to ignore. 

He was approaching the trucks at the end of Steve’s road, his mouth shaping orders she was too far away to hear, gesticulating with frantic, angry hands-

And then one soldier pulled out his gun and shot him in the head.

Blood sprayed everywhere and Owens fell to the ground with an audible thump, while Joyce recoiled and had to bite down on her hand to stop herself from screaming. The soldiers climbed into their trucks, passing around rowdy comments and laughter, and then left, leaving Owens’ body slumped on the sidewalk.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” she mumbled as she approached, chest heaving with panic. It had happened so quickly- so suddenly- and now Owens was dead- Owens was _dead_ , and couldn’t help them anymore-

This was Brenner. It had to be. Somehow he’d won back the soldiers’ allegiance and now they had no help- no reinforcements- and Owens was dead-

Hopper came running up behind her, his hand landing on her harm. “Joyce- what happened?”

“The soldiers- they- they killed him-” Treacherously her gaze was dragged back to his unmoving, bloody corpse. She hoped he’d stay that way, at least. Hoped the Mind Flayer wouldn’t resurrect him too.

“Fuck,” Hopper said again, running a hand over his face. “Jesus- well, we gotta get moving then. We gotta finish this.”

She nodded. “Hop, Brenner- in the void- he said that he was going to try to make a deal with the shadow creature somehow. What if that’s why the soldiers are following him now? Because he’s promised them power?”

“So if we defeat the shadow creature, then-”

“They won’t obey him anymore. We kill two birds with one stone.”

Hopper’s eyes were trained on hers, his gaze steady. She was still shaken, could still hear that awful shot ringing out, but for the first time there was hope blossoming inside her. Maybe they really could end this. Maybe they could bring back daylight and could watch the sun rise together. 

She took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”

\--

There were preparations to be made. Hopper separated them into groups - Joyce, El, Will, and Nancy (as she was a crack shot) were to go to the lake, the rest of them to the quarry. The kids would be dropped off at Dustin’s house on the way, as it was nearest. Joyce had argued for Will to go too but he’d just looked at her with those big, all-too-wise eyes and shaken his head. 

They dug out more shovels and axes from Steve’s shed and now that he was recovering from his head wound he was able to tell Hopper the code to his dad’s gun safe. Hopper took it and gave it straight to Nancy, because the shotgun was far more powerful than her handgun, and he needed her- god, he needed her to keep them safe. 

Kali had elected to come with him. “I’m good in a fight,” she said. He hoped she was right.

They packed the cars with gasoline, because fire was as good a defence as any from the shadow creature’s minions. And then it was time to go - time to separate. Hopper overheard Nancy and Jonathan, all but glued to one another, Nancy saying _The next time I see you everything will be normal again._

He moved over to Joyce. She was leaning against her car door, hugging herself against the cold, face lit golden by Steve’s porch light. “You ready?” he asked, stepping close to her.

She tilted her head up at him, her huge eyes shining. “As ready as I can be.”

“I’ll see you later, yeah?”

She bit her lip. “If we make it out- god, Hop, it seems stupid to worry about it now- but if we make it out, how the fuck am I gonna find another house? How am I-“

“You could live with me.” His voice was soft, somewhat tentative. Maybe it was too forward, maybe-

But she flushed, and her hand found his hand, her fingers winding around his fingers. “Could I?” She looked up at him through her eyelashes, almost coy.

He smiled. “Yeah, you could. I’ll find a house, a better one, not like the cabin. With room for all five of us.”

“Yeah?”

“And on our first night there I’ll cook all of us dinner, and we can listen to Elvis and Springsteen, and then maybe we can christen our new bed.”

She flushed harder, her hands reaching up to his collar and tugging him closer. “Oh yeah?” she whispered, smirking a little. God, she was divine.

“And then maybe in the morning I’ll make you breakfast in bed, and if you’re lucky we’ll go for round two.”

She pulled him in for a kiss, then - chaste, because they were still in public - but he felt the heat burning anyway. But then she pulled back, and he saw that her smile was fading.

“Don’t do that, don’t- don’t promise me anything,” she said. Bob had promised her a picket fence life in Maine, and maybe it never would’ve worked, maybe she didn’t really mean it - but it was almost like that little, fragile hope had jinxed it. Made him die right as he looked her in the eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Hopper understood that, better than most. He understood why she couldn’t let him tell her these things.

Why she couldn’t let that happen with Hopper.

“Just- just come back, and we can- we can talk about the future then. Okay? Come back.”

He nodded heavily, his hands finding her shoulders and rubbing gentle circles there. God, he got it. Still, it was nice to hope. “Okay,” he said, and kissed her again. When he pulled back she was crying, and he hastened to wipe away her tears with his thumb. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“You gotta go- we gotta go,” she said hurriedly, looking away from him. “Hopper- be safe, okay?”

He nodded. “You too.” God, he couldn’t lose her. And by the pain on her face she couldn’t lose him either.

Then he moved to hug his daughter as fiercely as he could before he climbed in the Blazer and drove his group away to the quarry. This night could end in one of two ways - either they’d succeed, and bring the sun back, and free Hawkins from the shadow and the military cordon, or else they’d die.

Either way it would be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're nearly there!! so very nearly there lol i'm gonna be sad when it's over but i also can't wait to move on to writing new things 
> 
> let me know what you think!! xx


	31. Prayers for Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce and El face the insurmountable task of opening and closing the gate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from 'prayers for rain' by the cure, a theme for this chapter alongside 'what if this storm ends' by snow patrol.

Nancy drove them to the lake. It took over forty minutes, not owing to traffic - the roads were quiet, empty of cars - but because halfway there they came upon a roadblock looming ominously in the distance and had to turn around. Joyce’s heart was pounding, afraid that maybe the soldiers manning it had spotted them, would come after them, but they weren’t followed.

El and Will were in the backseat, and somehow without turning around she knew their hands were woven together. They had a bond now, she’d noticed. Both kids whose childhoods had been ripped away. She was glad, she thought. Glad Will had someone who could understand. Glad El did too.

If she allowed herself to dream-

To dare, to dream-

She could imagine them all, one big happy family in a house somewhere. Maybe Hawkins, maybe not. El and Will having Eggos for breakfast, Jonathan making eggs in a vague attempt to get them to eat healthily. Hopper sneaking up behind her and wrapping his arm around her waist, the two of them watching their kids in the golden morning light. 

It was so close she could almost touch it. Could almost taste the smell of cooking eggs, of hot coffee. She just had to get through today. Open the gate, and destroy the Mind Flayer, and close it again. Hope that Hopper and Jonathan survived too.

The dark, snowy fields whipped past and she prayed they might all live to survive the dawn. 

And then they arrived. The lake looked the same as it always did - the wide expanse of water, the darkened trees surrounding the bank. There was a jetty projecting out into it, a little sad and frail-looking now, where Joyce remembered sitting and watching the boys in her year take a boat out on the water back in the summer of ‘59. Now it would be used for a darker, infinitely more important purpose.

There was ice creeping over the surface of the shallows. Joyce prodded at it tentatively and turned back to Nancy. “We should try and melt some of this ice.”

Nancy nodded. “It likes it cold, right? So we make it as uncomfortable as possible.”

All four of them together lifted out the containers of gasoline and poured it around the nearby perimeter of the lake, over the ice and the snowy shore. They all worked diligently, even the kids, though Joyce could see them rubbing at their eyes, watering from the strength of the fumes. 

And then they were ready, and Nancy loaded her shotgun with a sharp click that echoed around the rustling trees. It was eerily silent, and Joyce had the feeling that all this was too easy. 

She, El, and Will walked to the end of the jetty, which creaked ominously under their feet, while Nancy remained at the foot of it with her shotgun poised and ready. She lit the gasoline with a quick flick of a lighter and the rim of the lake exploded into flame, burning steady and bright and casting a hot light over the dark surface. 

One last thing, before they began. Joyce took out the radio Hop had given her and spoke into it urgently, desperate to get some response. “Hop? Do you copy?”

It crackled for a moment.

Then-

“Joyce?”

She breathed a sigh of relief, the tension in her gut momentarily uncoiling at the mere sound of his voice. “Hop- we’re ready. We’re gonna open the gate now.”

“Okay-” There was a crash over the audio and he was cut off for a moment, before returning out of breath. “We’re in the thick of it here.”

“Chief-” Will said, moving closer. “It’s gonna get worse when we open the gate. Not for long, hopefully the attack will stop pretty quick, but still.”

“Thanks for the warning, kid. Joyce? Good luck.”

The radio went silent and Joyce took a deep breath. “Will, you stay behind us, okay? Leave the heavy lifting to me and El.”

After a moment’s hesitation he nodded, face pale and taut. Then he stepped back and she looked at El, who was looking down at the still water with a bottomless stare. Joyce touched her shoulder and she jumped, glancing around with wide eyes. 

“You okay?”

She nodded. “I can do this.”

“ _We_ can do this. You don’t have to do it all alone, not anymore, okay? We’ll do it together.”

She nodded again, and Joyce hugged her briefly, trying to preserve the memory of her small, soft warmth in case it all went horribly wrong. Was she ready? She didn’t know - wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready - but she had to be. They had to do this.

El’s hand found hers and she squeezed it, sparing the girl another glance before they both stared down at the lake. There was a silent, dreadful moment in which neither of them moved, and the water just drifted on by, stirred by the faint breeze, and Joyce had to think - _what if I can’t do this? What if I don’t know how?_

But she had to.

El raised her arm and Joyce did the same, and it was like the universe was being torn apart. The fabric of the world stretching- tearing- She let out a gasp at the pain of it but El was intent, brows lowered in a glare. Joyce tried to follow her example, to lean into the feeling, to embrace it and control it-

And the dark lake began to light up. 

A golden glow, so bright she had to squint at it, cut through the darkness and spilled over the water and the trees and the sky, so it seemed almost to be on fire. She let the light give her hope and lend her strength, so that the gate opened wider.

But then-

“Mom!” Will yelled, and she looked up to see a tendril of shadow snaking towards them. El deflected it with a swift, concentrated movement of her head but another one came at them and suddenly there were shots behind them, the sounds of Nancy furiously reloading her shotgun. Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

El was gripping her hand so hard her fingers felt numb. Joyce tried to use that connection, tried to direct their combined power into the gate. Inch by inch, it crept wider until the water began to swirl around it, becoming choppy like the sea in a storm. The shadowy tendrils reaching out flinched.

“It’s working,” Joyce said through gritted teeth. El risked a glance at her and Joyce saw that her face was pale and bloody, it pouring from her nose and ears. With an absent jolt she realised she must look just as bad. But they turned back to the water and fought against the strain.

But then-

Will let out an agonised cry behind them and Joyce whipped around, concentration broken by the pain in her son’s voice. He had fallen to his knees and was clutching at his skull desperately- but as she started towards him he looked up with eyes watery but determined. “It’s working,” he gasped out. “You have to- you have to keep going.”

“Will-”

“Do it!” 

She nodded tightly. Behind him, at the foot of the jetty, Nancy was fighting off new shambling corpses and Joyce knew it wouldn’t be long before the horde overwhelmed her. So they had to end this, now. She turned back to the water and let the thoughts of everything that had happened - all the panic, the grief, the rage that she had been suppressing for so long - take over. She let the images that had been lurking dark at the back of her mind come forth and burn bright behind her eyelids. She thought of Will’s screams, El bleeding but still determined, Hopper’s hopeful kiss. Jonathan willing to put anything and everything on the line for them, Nancy taking shot after shot with fearless eyes. Those kids gathering and whispering and working it all out, smarter than a thousand men from Hawkins Lab. Bob dying for her, Hopper killing for her. The sound of her own panicked heartbeat as she burnt the shadow from her son, not sure if she’d lose him in the process, as the kids set the tunnels on fire and El closed the gate. Brenner leering over her years ago and Brenner leering over her yesterday. So much that had happened, and so much that might happen still, if she didn’t stop it-

The air was filled with an awful, eerie screech, like a siren only monstrous and evil. Joyce opened her eyes and was suddenly startled to find both herself and El hovering a few feet above the jetty. The water was still swirling into a whirlpool, the whole lake disturbed by it now, and right in the center the gate burned bright and dark at once like a blinding solar eclipse. 

They both stared for a moment, awed by the sight. It was strangely beautiful and horrible all at once. 

“Joyce!” Nancy yelled and she looked around to see the girl nearly overrun by the horde, reduced to using the shotgun as a club. “You have to end this!”

Joyce looked at Will, still on his knees on the jetty, but he met her gaze with a steady wisdom far beyond his years. “It’s done. You can close it now.”

El shifted by her side, and nodded. “Ready?” she asked softly, her voice matching Will’s in mature certainty. 

Joyce hesitated for what felt like an eternity but was really only a millisecond; then she nodded too. “Let’s kill the son of a bitch.” She’d said it before, but this time maybe they would succeed.

Closing the gate was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

She was exhausted already, barely staying upright, sustained by some unconscious force of El’s that kept both of them suspended in the air, but the strain of this was like something splitting her skull in two. El was screaming by her side, a hoarse yell of frustration, anger, effort - and it took her a moment, but Joyce realised she was screaming too. 

The torn, ragged edges of the world slowly knitting back together. The screeches of the shadow fading, dying. The blinding light growing dimmer, the darkness shrinking back. Joyce was hyper aware of Will behind her, and so she noticed when he slowly got to his feet. Safe from the shadow, finally. She felt a surge of relief so strong it sent some last jolt of power out, and-

The gate slammed shut.

It closed with such force it sent a shockwave over the surface, the wave crashing against the jetty and spraying them all with water. The bright light was gone but everything was lit faintly in red. Joyce had a moment to let out the breath she’d been holding before El’s head drooped and then they were falling, the lake and the jetty coming up to meet them sharply, and before she could think Joyce was underwater.

It was icy cold, so cold she froze up completely as she sank below the surface. There was no sign of El- she must have landed on the jetty- but all she could focus on was the choking, dark cold. Somehow she felt more afraid than she had been before, because drowning was a real, tangible thing, unlike the faceless shadowy horror. It would certainly be ironic, she thought, if after closing the gate and ridding the world of eldritch horrors she were to drown in Lovers’ Lake.

She tried to fight against the cold drag of the water pulling her down, but she was exhausted and the temperature added lethargy to her already weary limbs. The surface was disappearing- her head was swimming- she was sure she’d hugged her children, kissed Hopper for the last time-

But then she was tugged upwards by some invisible force and she surfaced gasping for breath, lungs heaving in the cold air. There were hands on her arms - Nancy’s, Will’s - and they brought her up onto the jetty where all four of them collapsed into a wet, exhausted heap.

“Mom-” 

This was El, not Will, but Joyce didn’t have the energy to be surprised. She gathered the girl into a damp but warm, tight hug and tried to ignore the way her head was pounding. 

“I thought you were going to drown,” El whispered into her shoulder. She was crying, her whole body shaking. Joyce pulled back and looked her over, smudged away a few bloody tears. Her face was lit with a rosy red light and Joyce realised, looking up at the sky, that it was dawn. The sun was beginning to rise.

“I didn’t. Thanks to you.” 

Will joined in the embrace and the three of them knelt there together, unable to summon the energy to move. Nancy prowled the edge of the lake with her shotgun, just in case, and Joyce reflected absently that she had to radio Hopper and Jonathan- she had to find out, to know-

But what was the adage? _No news is good news._ She could wait a bit, perhaps. If she received bad news now - in her exhausted, sodden state - she might crumble.

But then the decision was made for her. The radio - discarded on the middle of the jetty - crackled to life and impulsively, almost unconsciously, she dragged herself over to it and fumbled to pick it up. “Hop?”

“Joyce,” he breathed over the line. God- thank god- “You did it- it worked. The zombies are dead- really dead this time.”

“Hop,” she repeated, and it was half a sob. “Hop- you’re okay-”

“Yeah, we are, but Joyce-” She became aware of background noise crackling over the static, faintly violent sounds. “It’s not over yet. Brenner- he made it out somehow- he’s headed your way-”

She felt suddenly, horribly cold, and it had nothing to do with her drenched clothes or the chill of the breeze. El was all but comatose and Nancy was out of shot. Will couldn’t do anything, and Joyce- god, she was tired. She wasn’t sure she had the physical strength left in her to defend them. 

“Joyce-” Hopper started again, and she hastened to listen. “You gotta-”

And then there was a shot.

And then silence. The radio was dead silent, only fuzzy with faint static-

And she couldn’t hear what happened next because El was screaming and she was screaming too, those relieved sobs turning sour and harsh in her chest and burning her throat with bile. “Hopper!” she cried down the line, and no one answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooof, i'm sorry for the cliffhanger lmao
> 
> one more chapter before the epilogue!! let me know if you made it this far xx


	32. Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joyce, El, and Hopper face off against Brenner for the final time.

The bullet tore through Hopper’s thigh and sent him tumbling to the ground with a hoarse, agonised cry. The pain was white-hot and blinding and he had neither the strength nor the presence of mind to fumble for his own gun in retaliation, though his attacker was sure to try again and finish the job-

He looked up into Jessica’s violent eyes. Met her gaze as she raised her gun again, unable to do anything but accept his fate-

Then she too crumpled to the floor with a sickening crack as Jonathan’s bat found her skull. It was the old nail bat, from way back when, now dripping with blood and brain matter which had also splattered the kid’s face, but Hopper thought he’d never been so glad to see anyone in his life. 

“Jesus, Hopper-” he started, staring aghast at the bloody mess that was Hopper’s leg. 

He tried to move, to struggle to his feet, and let out a low yell at the pain. “Son of a bitch,” he gritted out. He fumbled for his radio - because god knew what Joyce thought, with the gunshot and then the silence - but it had been crushed underneath him when he fell. His heart dropped. “Jonathan- you have to find your mom- he’s going after them-”

Jonathan frowned. “Who?”

“Brenner,” he managed. He attempted inspecting the wound gingerly but the slightest touch sent agony reeling through him and his vision whited out. 

“Fuck, okay, I’ll- I’ll go to them- I’ll take the Blazer-” The kid was eyeing him with cautious concern. “Shit, that looks really bad, you need the hospital-”

Hopper shook his head tightly. “No time. Help me to the car.” Jonathan hesitated. “Where the hell is everyone else, anyway?”

As if the mere question had summoned her, Kali appeared by Jonathan’s shoulder. “Axel and Steve are burning the corpses-” She started, then caught sight of Hopper’s leg and stopped. She lunged forward, her hands finding the wound and pressing so hard he yelled in agony, instinctively flinched away. She met his eyes fiercely. “We have to keep pressure on it, yes? If you bleed out Jane will never forgive me.”

He half-smiled, eyes closed against the pain. “Not to mention Joyce would-” he winced, and the last few words came out in a rush “- probably kill you.”

With both hers and Jonathan’s help he struggled to his feet and limped the admittedly short distance to the Blazer, supported by them on either side. It was a miracle, frankly, that they made it, because Kali was even shorter than Joyce and Jonathan, while strong, was wiry rather than large. But they did make it and Hopper slumped in the back, trying not to lose consciousness as well as blood.

“Chief!” Kali snapped and he blinked his eyes open. “You must stay awake.”

She pressed her hand down on the bullet wound again and he gasped, but he understood what she wanted. His fingers replaced hers and he gritted his teeth against the pain of it. Focused on images of El and Joyce to distract himself - and it worked, until he started thinking of Brenner hurtling across town towards them in that military truck he’d taken-

“Let’s go!” he shouted, because they weren’t even moving yet. 

Jonathan scrambled into the driver’s seat and they shot off, Hopper wincing at every bump in the road. Kali was looking at him with urgent eyes. “Brenner,” she said. “When we find him - what are you going to do?”

He was very rapidly reminded that he was gravely wounded, that Jonathan had to focus on the road, and that therefore he was completely at her mercy. She’d shown herself to be a ruthless, qualmless killer. So he had to watch his answer.

“He’s not getting away. Not this time. We end this.”

“With his death. This ends with his death, nothing less. Understood?”

After a quiet, tense moment he nodded. He understood. They were on the same wavelength exactly, because after everything Brenner had done there was no way Hopper was letting him live. No way in hell.

(But Hopper had to survive this bullet wound first.)

\--

Joyce was numb as Nancy pulled her to her feet. She clutched the dead radio close to her chest like a lifeline, like it wasn’t just a hunk of plastic now, like it might still crackle to life at any moment. El was sobbing behind her - out of fear, pain, exhaustion. Joyce felt like sobbing too, but the world had taken on a curious blank stillness. Her ears were ringing and belatedly she realised that Nancy was talking to her, as if from the end of a long, looming tunnel.

“Joyce!” the girl shouted. Joyce blinked at her confusedly. “We have to go!”

She looked back at El. Will was trying to help her up, winding his hands under her arms and all but pulling her towards the car. Joyce became aware that her knees were aching under her, pressed against the wooden slats of the jetty, and that she’d scraped them on her way down.

“Joyce,” Nancy said again. She was holding out a hand for her to take.

Slowly, hesitantly, though the girl was practically vibrating with impatient tension, Joyce took it and let herself be dragged to her feet. Their progress to the car was painfully gradual, both Joyce and El almost too tired to move, but they would make it. They were only a few feet from the car when Joyce wilted against Nancy and the girl had to drop the shotgun to support her. It clattered against the decking and lay there forgotten as Nancy and Will hurried them along.

They would make it - and indeed they did, Nancy steering her to the passenger seat before moving to the drivers’ side with quick, hurried steps. They would make it, Joyce, thought, and was closing her eyes to surrender to the exhaustion when there was the deafening crash of breaking glass and a crack like a gunshot.

Nancy let out a scream and Joyce bolted upright, adrenaline pounding through her and burning away her fatigue, to see-

Brenner. He’d found them. He held a handgun aloft, steady in his hands, pointed straight at them. There was a deadly bullet hole in the windshield, radiating cracks like lightning, and Joyce whipped around to see Will and El cowering in the backseat with their hands linked so tightly both their knuckles were white. 

“Get out of the car,” Brenner called to them. The gun didn’t waver. “Don’t even think about trying anything.”

And she saw that it would be foolish to, as he called it, ‘try anything’. He was backed up by at least a dozen soldiers, all with guns trained on the car. She felt cold. They’d all been so focused on getting away that they hadn’t even considered he might already be here.

She looked around at the kids and then shared a solemn, defeated glance with Nancy. Maybe there’d be some way out of this, but for now-

Slowly, with her hands raised in the air, she exited the car. Adrenaline aside she could still barely walk and she leant on the hood for support, nausea rising in her throat the longer she looked at Brenner. The thought that he might win- that he might actually triumph over them, and kill them or take her and El back for more twisted experiments- after everything they’d done, sacrificed, after they’d defeated the shadow creature once and for all and brought light back to the sky-

“It was a clever little trick,” he said. “Directing the attack towards me. Two birds with one stone, as they say. Defeating me and the undead at once. Or, it would have been if it had worked. But alas-” he stepped closer, eyeing the others carefully “-you’ve just made my career.”

“Oh, no, there’s no way you’re getting away with all this.” Nancy’s voice was cold, and defiant. Joyce had a sudden image of her the year prior, taking down the lab with Jonathan by her side. Fierce and fiery and unwilling to take no for an answer. She couldn’t ask for her son to have a better girlfriend.

Brenner smiled humorlessly. “Oh, but you’re mistaken. The dimensional crisis was my problem, and you’ve fixed it for me. All will be forgiven. I’ll return to the President bearing gifts, and with the whole mess wrapped up nicely.”

“Gifts,” Joyce repeated tonelessly. Behind her, El was slumped against the door barely conscious, bloody tears racing down her cheeks. 

“Just two. You’ve become far too problematic, but Eleven and your son still have so much potential.”

At this Joyce forced herself to focus. The words sent a jolt through her, so sharp and icy her heart skipped a beat. “No, no you fucking don’t-”

He held up a hand as if to silence her and she burned. She burned with rage, and fear, and rage, and she tried to encourage it - to coax it into the flame of energy, of power. But she was spent. Her fingers sparked weakly but that was all, and she sagged, exhausted.

Brenner was watching with some sick pleasure on his face. “We have no more use for you. You, and the girl-” he indicated Nancy with a careless turn of his head “- and your other son, and the police Chief. You’re all to be terminated.”

 _Terminated._ She felt ill. But they could do nothing, because the soldiers surrounded them and Brenner held them at gunpoint and Nancy had left the shotgun on the jetty.

“Now, enough-” 

Brenner’s slick, cold voice was suddenly cut off with an almost strangled cry. Joyce watched in amazement - horror, awe - as he grappled with empty air and the soldiers rushed forward to fight nothing. She whipped around to look at El but her eyes were closed, her hands limp by her sides. This wasn’t her.

And then-

Emerging out of the dawn shadows, Kali and Jonathan. Kali’s face was concentrated, blood dripping from her nose, and Jonathan came out swinging that now-prolific nail bat, beating the shit out of the nearest soldiers through the sheer element of surprise.

And Hopper-

He appeared too.

He was the one attacking Brenner, grappling with him despite being weaponless, despite the bloodied mess that was his leg, that made Joyce grimace. The gun had fallen to the ground - thank god - and even in his weakened state Hopper was more than a match for the thin scientist. Brenner was the sort of man who belonged in suits and lab coats, not uniform. It was just as well.

Nancy took the opportunity to dive for the shotgun and when she reached it she swung it round, laying low four soldiers in one fell swoop. Joyce wanted nothing more than to help, to do anything other than just stand here and watch, but it was all she could do to stay on her feet. Instead she settled on shielding El and Will with her body, if it came to that.

But then-

Hopper and Brenner both landed on the ground. They were tangled together, fists flying, chokeholds made then broken. Brenner was weaker than Hop, true, but Hopper had lost a lot of blood. It was a fair fight that didn’t show any signs of ending. Joyce’s breath was caught tight in her throat and she was seconds away from going over there herself, despite the fact she was barely staying upright-

Then by some miracle the gun on the ground flew over to them, a hand reaching out to grab it - and she couldn’t tell whose. There was a cry behind her, El’s, with the strain of using her powers this final time, but Joyce was transfixed-

The shot rang out, and then there was silence.

There was silence, and somehow she found the strength to rush forward, to fall to her knees beside the two men. She couldn’t breathe- felt sick with horror- the world had come to a standstill around her-

Slowly, Brenner rolled away and Hopper sat up.

“Hop,” she breathed. He looked at her wearily, but he was a sight for sore eyes if ever there was one. She all but fell into his arms and tried not to sob.

Brenner was twitching sightlessly, still alive but only just. A ragged, bloody bullet wound decorated his shirt and Joyce allowed herself a moment of vindictive pleasure at the sight. Then she turned back to Hopper and buried her face in his chest, breathed in his warmth, the very fact of his life. He was alive. He, and Jonathan, and Will, and El - they’d all made it.

“El,” he croaked into her hair. 

“She’s okay. Will’s with her.”

Kali came up towards them then, eyes still razor sharp. Slowly she took up the gun from where Hopper had dropped it, holding it as if testing its weight. Then she looked from Brenner to Joyce and held it out, grip first. In her face was a silent offer - of revenge, vindication. Final freedom.

“He’s yours, if you want to.”

Joyce looked up at Hopper, then back at El, who was still slumped against the car. The girl blinked at her, and slowly shook her head.

Joyce turned back to Kali and then she, too, shook her head. “No. I’ll leave it to you.”

Kali’s face was unreadable as she took back the gun and clicked the safety off. Joyce didn’t look as the shot rang out, instead resting her head against Hopper’s chest and letting the rhythm of his heartbeat lull her into a doze. Jonathan had gone to crouch over El and Will with the last of the soldiers having been defeated, and Nancy stood over them protectively, the shotgun still couched in her arms.

“You should go to the hospital,” Kali said quietly. Joyce realised vaguely that she was talking to Hopper.

His voice rumbled through his chest when he answered. “In a minute. We just- uh, deserve a rest, right? Just for a bit.”

“A rest,” she repeated mirthlessly, and there was the sound of retreating footsteps. Joyce thought a little absently that it might well be the last time they ever saw her. But for now, Hopper was right. They deserved a rest.

“It’s over,” she whispered. Her voice shook as she said it, because she still couldn’t believe it. Any second, she thought, another threat might emerge from among the trees. Might tear away this fragile safety she’d found in his arms.

“It’s over,” he affirmed, ever so gently. His hand found her hair and stroked soft motions through it.

She lay there and listened to his heartbeat until long after the sun had risen above the trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, here we are. only the epilogue to go! this fic has been a wild ride and i've loved writing it, and i hope you've enjoyed reading it :)
> 
> let me know what you think xx


	33. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three Months Later.

“Hey.”

Hopper was roused by Joyce’s soft voice, insistent even as he tried to roll over and go back to sleep. 

“Hey,” she said again, louder. “We gotta get up.”

“Do we?” he groused, eyes still closed. 

“ _Yes_. It’s moving day, remember?”

Finally he was persuaded to open his eyes. He blinked in the sunlight, gaze focusing on Joyce’s smiling face. Everything was lit golden by the sunlight streaming in. He slowly sat up and rubbed his eyes as she moved away from him and to her little pile of clothes, neatly folded on a chair. She was only in her underwear - plain black bra, plain black panties - and he found himself enjoying the view.

“Are you gonna get up, or are you just gonna stare at me all morning?” she said without turning around.

He smirked. “Can’t I do both?”

She slipped her jeans on and turned to roll her eyes at him as she zipped them up. “Seriously. Get up. We wanna get out of this shithole, don’t we?”

He sighed and threw back the covers. Yeah, they did. The safehouse they’d been living in for the past three months was dark, depressing, and had the added bonus of government agents looking over their shoulders the whole time. When they’d found out this was where they’d have to stay Joyce had kicked off such a fuss he was afraid she’d kill someone (and maybe a little hopeful?). But they’d been assured it was only temporary, and they really hadn’t had much option. 

Today, however, they were getting out. They’d found a place, finally - a nice four bedroom in a nicer area of town, the kind of place neither of them could have afforded if not for the government compensation, hush money, whatever you wanted to call it. Again, Joyce had been vehemently against taking it - but they had little option.

“We may as well take what we can get,” he’d said to her quietly, when the official had left them to deliberate.

She sighed. “It just feels- dirty. Like we’re letting them get away with it.”

“They didn’t get away with it. Brenner’s dead, his goons with him, and Murray’s still got those tapes. If they ever do anything like this again, we can stop them. Just- you deserve to get something good out of this whole mess, don’t you think?”

She’d looked at him with that tender feeling that still made his heart jump. “I got you,” she’d whispered, and he’d kissed her.

That had been a few months ago, now, when Hopper was still in a hospital bed and Joyce spent all her nights in a chair beside him. It hadn’t been the easiest of times, not when both of them woke with nightmares more often than not, but just having her by his side was enough. More than enough.

He was jolted out of his thoughts by her hands coming to rest on his shoulders as he sat on the edge of the bed, and he looked up into her smiling face. “I can hear you thinking from over there.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Usually it’s me. What are you thinking about?”

“How lucky we are,” he said. She leaned down and kissed him, and he took the opportunity to take her by the waist and pull her down closer. She was straddling him, his hands beginning to wander up to her uncovered bra, when she moved back. 

“This doesn’t feel much like you getting up.”

He smirked. “I’m gettin’ something up.”

Her jaw dropped in mock outrage and she swatted at his chest. “Just for that comment, I’m getting dressed.”

“Aw, come on,” he wheedled, but she was moving away and tugging her t-shirt over her head. Begrudgingly, knowing he’d been defeated, he stood up and moved over to his own pile of clothes. When they were both dressed - and he’d snuck in an extra kiss - they found Jonathan in the kitchen making breakfast with one of the few pans that hadn’t been packed away, accompanied by the mouth-watering scent of sizzling bacon.

“Yes, please,” he said, though no question had been asked, and shoved a piece of toast in his mouth.

“Did I offer?” Jonathan asked with a raised eyebrow, but there was the hint of a smile on his face. 

“Are there Eggos?” This was El, blinking sleepily in the doorway. Will wasn’t far behind her, looking equally tired. No doubt they were up the whole night talking, since they shared a room. Hopper was glad they would have their own spaces in the new house, because if nothing else they had real potential to become a troublesome pair.

“Of course,” Jonathan said, and on cue two waffles popped up out of the toaster. 

Hopper settled down beside Joyce at the table and they both watched in amusement as Will and El bickered over toppings. El was a firm proponent of whipped cream, while Will hated whipped cream and much preferred syrup. 

“So, I roped in Steve and Nancy to help with the move,” Jonathan said as he set their plates down in front of them. 

“Thanks, that’s great.” Joyce was watching her son, something fond in her eyes. The kid had returned to school and passed his classes with flying colors, despite the disruption of that spring and the fact of now living in a safehouse. NYU didn’t look so much like a dream anymore - more of a reality. And Hopper knew the kid was much, much happier about the thought of it now that he knew his mom and Will wouldn’t be left on their own. Now that they were all one family together.

When they’d all finished breakfast, it was time to get going. Boxes packed and taped up, furniture loaded into the van. They’d somehow collected a lot of shit in the last three months, despite most of the Byers’ earthly possessions being destroyed in the fire. Hopper had emptied his ransacked cabin and brought all his and El’s things here, though there was no real cause for it. He and El could have stayed there, if they chose. It was messy, not destroyed. But neither of them had been willing to leave the Byers. And besides, Hopper had spent the last few months convalescing. (That was a weak excuse.)

Finally the van was loaded, and the safehouse was empty, and Joyce let out a sigh by his side. “Thank god that’s over,” she said quietly.

He looped an arm around her shoulders as she locked the door, and they walked away without a backwards glance.

\--

After the events by the lake, Joyce had slept for four days. She woke in the hospital and immediately felt the panic rise up in her dry throat, because she was alone in the room and Hopper, El, her boys- they were nowhere to be seen. After everything that had happened she couldn’t find it in herself to trust the hospital room, the doctor, the nurses who came to calm her. When they tried to sedate her - for very little reason, too, since she wasn’t presenting a danger - the lights had flickered, and that _was_ dangerous. Her powers had clearly come back, now that she was rested, and she wasn’t going to let them hurt her again-

But then Jonathan had rushed in, and shouted the nurses down, and she was finally left alone. Hawkins General, they’d brought her to. Her and Hopper and El. El was awake, still weary, but Will was keeping her company. Hopper was still in the ICU, but he’d be fine. Jonathan made sure to stress this point. _He’ll be fine._

At this point a man in a suit had come in and Joyce had stiffened. He had the government air, though not nearly so sinister as Brenner had been. He told her about the compensation she’d be receiving, the offer of a place to stay, medical bills all paid. She just stared at him with a look of horrified disbelief. When he was gone, Jonathan sat by her bed and explained in a quiet voice.

“Murray- he came through. He turned up a couple days ago with the tapes, all edited and everything, and he’s holding them against the government people. He can get them to do anything he wants.”

“Tapes?” Her mind refused to process this.

“The one from you, that night where-” Jonathan had to stop and visibly swallowed, looking away. “And Two. She got lost in the fighting- we thought for sure she’d cut and run- but it turns out she went to Murray. Told her story, got it all on tape. We’ve got them, Mom. We finally got them.”

“But we’re not exposing them? We’re not- we’re just blackmailing them instead?”

He sighed. “It’s not that simple. This shit goes up to Reagan himself, Mom. At the end of the day they’re too powerful to fight. What if we just- take this gift, that Murray and Two have given us, and finally, I don’t know, get to have a quiet life?” 

She relented, running a hand through his hair like she used to do when he was small. He smiled up at her shyly, and she let herself relax, though it wouldn’t be until she’d talked it over with Hopper that she was finally won over.

Joyce discharged herself, doctors be damned, and spent the next few weeks by Hopper’s bedside. Hawkins was the center of the world for less than five days, with news of the military cordon and the weather and the rumor of the undead walking around summoning all the big networks, but by Thursday they’d all packed up and gone home again. The government probably had something to do with that, but she’d told herself she wasn’t gonna think about that anymore.

A quiet life. She could do that, right?

The weeks passed. Jonathan and Will went back to school, Joyce didn’t go back to work. The dirty money, as she couldn’t help but think of it, was more than enough for her to take a few months off. Hopper needed her at home, needed her to help him in and out of bed, but more than that-

Her days curled on the couch with Hopper, El squeezed in between them, were her happiest in a while. She wasn’t going to sacrifice that easy bliss until she had to - not for the world, and certainly not for Donald fucking Melvald. 

Hopper slowly got better.

They started the property search, him limping behind her and scowling at every staircase they found. She was insistent, though, that if they were doing this they were gonna do it properly. No dark bungalow, not this time. 

They found a place. It was large, and bright, and airy. Four bedrooms all light and cool in the summer heat. The kind of place she’d dreamt of owning when she was in high school - it wasn’t all that grand, was modest by the Harrington kid’s standards, but it felt like the kind of place she could cultivate her family. Cultivate happiness, where before there’d been all too much sorrow.

The week before they were due to move, she sat down at the kitchen table one day when Hopper and El were playing draughts and wrote letters. She wrote one to Bob’s parents, full of vague allusions to the apologies she wished she could give them, and the plea for forgiveness it constituted. She wrote one to Two, trying to keep her gratitude from bleeding out of her pen. She knew the older woman wouldn’t appreciate it. 

She wrote one to Kali, that was less of a thank-you than an update on El. An invitation to come visit, if she ever chose. Joyce doubted she’d take her up on it. 

She wrote one to Brenner. It was vile, full of hatred, and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she scribbled so furiously she tore the page. It took her half an hour to calm herself down when she was done, and then she took out her lighter and burnt it, the angry marks of her pen still outlined within her eyelids. It was an ugly part of her that she wished no one else to see. But it felt cathartic, and she breathed a sigh of relief with the weight lifted from her shoulders.

She wrote one to Lonnie. It was of a similar tone, at the start. She could feel the horrible, violated anger dripping off her in waves, and she had to consciously force herself to take a breath. Then she swung back too far the other way - veering into guilt, born out of years of blaming and gaslighting - and she had to tear that one up too, unfinished. It seemed she and Lonnie would never get closure, but at the end of the day she didn’t have to. He was dead.

By this time her hand was aching, her stack of paper growing thin, but she wasn’t done. She wrote one to Jonathan, that she resolved to press into his hand the day he left for college (sometime soon, she knew). It was equal parts pride and gratitude - pride at what an amazing man he’d turned out to be, and gratitude for his always being there for her, more a co-parent than a son at times. She apologised for this, but she tried not to let her own guilt drown the letter in sorrow. She had too many things to apologise for if she started now, and it would only make him feel bad.

She wrote one to Nancy, too. The girl was practically a part of the family at this point, and wherever she ended up for college Joyce knew no power on earth could separate her from Jonathan, not even geography. The letter’s tone was one of gratitude - for everything she’d done for them. Out of everyone, Joyce thought Nancy was the strongest. Without her they’d all have been dead a long time ago, she knew. 

She wrote letters to Will and El, one each. Will’s was surprisingly short, but she guessed she’d shown her love for him enough through actions rather than words these past few years. El’s was longer, saturated with inside jokes they had with and about Hopper and maternal pride that shone the whole way through. Joyce’s eyes were watering writing it, so she could scarcely imagine the girl’s reaction. She’d give them their letters at Christmas, maybe. Their first Christmas as a family. The family El so needed and deserved.

Her final letter was to Hopper.

When she was done, she looked it over with hands trembling slightly and blew the ink dry. It was like baring a part of her soul, and it scared her. The last time she’d been this vulnerable-

Well, maybe she hadn’t ever been. 

She folded it over and slipped it inside an envelope, carefully marking it with his name. She’d give it to him the day they moved. That night, maybe. When the kids had gone to bed. Maybe when she’d gone to bed too, so she wouldn’t have to witness him reading it.

God, what was she doing?

But the process felt tender, and healing, like the necessary cleaning of wounds. The next week they’d be leaving this house, and moving on into the next phase of life. Leaving all this pain behind them.

Hopper and El interrupted her, having finished their game. El was crowing, Hopper was sulking, and Joyce took the opportunity to slide all the envelopes together into a bag. It wasn’t that she didn’t want them to see - but this moment was hers, and hers alone.

 

And then it was the day. Moving day. 

With the help of pretty much everyone - Steve, Nancy, even the rest of the kids - they loaded and unloaded the van, filled up the light hallway with boxes. They’d bought some furniture new, which they’d already set up, so in reality it didn’t take too long. And when the van was empty, all the kids wanted to go catch a movie, and Joyce let them go. They wouldn’t be kids forever, so they were allowed to have their fun for now. 

Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve disappeared too. She wasn’t sure where they went, but Jonathan assured her he’d be back for dinner in a tone that suggested he’d be making it, in no uncertain terms. 

And then it was just her and Hopper, alone in their new house. 

She looked up at the unfamiliar ceiling, the unfamiliar staircase. The hallway was wide and bright and the opposite of everything her old house had been. She wandered slowly, taking it all in. Ran her hand over the smooth wooden banister. 

She felt Hopper’s eyes on her, and she turned. “What?” she said, smiling, as he continued to stare in silence.

“Nothing,” he said finally, shaking his head. “Just- you.”

“What about me?” She drew closer.

“Nothing. Everything. Just _you_.” His gaze didn’t waver.

She blushed and looked away, then felt her heart sink to her toes. It was time to give him the letter, wasn’t it? There wouldn’t be a better moment. She slipped it out of her cardigan pocket and into his hand, barely looking at him as she did. “You know I’m not the best at- saying things. It all gets tangled up in my head, and you’d interrupt, and I’d chicken out-” She swallowed. “So here it is. What I wanna say.”

His eyes rested on her for a moment before moving down to the letter, which he removed from the envelope with steady fingers. Then he began to read, and she turned away. She didn’t want to watch his face. She moved to sit on the stairs, pulling out her smokes and lighting one anxiously.

There were a few minutes of silence. Then-

She didn’t even hear him approach, but his hands were on her arms tugging her up and then his eyes locked with hers, his face only inches away. “I love you,” he said, and before she could begin to feel some type of way about that he was kissing her. Slow at first, but rising in heat and intensity until she was pressed flush against the banister. 

“We’ve finally got the house to ourselves,” he whispered against her skin. He was right about finally. They hadn’t been alone together - not completely - since his wound had healed. Meaning they hadn’t yet shared more than a handjob.

She smirked. “Suppose we should christen our new bed.”

They made it upstairs, leaving a trail of clothing in their wake as Hopper’s kisses progressed lower and lower. When his skilful tongue found that certain spot she gasped, pleasure shuddering through her - and then scowled when he laughed.

“What the fuck’s so funny?”

“Look,” he said, pointing behind her. She looked and saw that the lamp by their bed had flickered to life. “Can you control it, or is this gonna be some kinda lightshow?”

She blushed again, furiously. Yeah, that was definitely something she was gonna have to work on. But for now she just tugged him back down. “Depends how well you do.”

“Is that a challenge?” He was smirking as he moved his hands and she gasped again, grabbing onto the rails of the headboard for support. _Smug bastard_ , she thought, then stopped thinking at all.

If any neighbors had been around to see, any passers-by on the street, they would have noticed a strange occurrence in the window of the master bedroom in the new Hopper-Byers house. The lights flickering, from dim to bright. A final euphoric golden glow.

\--

That evening, their first evening in the new house, they all had an early dinner together and then draped themselves over the scant, oddly placed furniture in the living room with wine and cigarettes and music. Jonathan had argued for his own mixtape - dark, moody stuff like the Talking Heads, The Cure - but Joyce had very firmly told him no. Their first night was going to be happier than that, she decided.

So Hopper produced his own mixtape, full of tunes she recognised from ‘back in the day’ and some newer ones she was surprised to hear. She nodded her head along, smiling as Jonathan rolled his eyes.

“Can we have Eggos for dessert?” El asked, and Will looked excited too.

“How many times do I have to say that Eggos are not a dessert food?” Hopper grumbled.

Joyce nudged him on the arm. “Special treat,” she said, and nodded at them. They hurried off, with Jonathan following - probably in search of his own sweet treat. She watched them go, warm with happiness.

The song changed, and the warm, sunny tones of Springsteen filled the room. Hopper was tapping his foot along to the beat, and then with a smirk he stubbed out his cigarette and held out a hand. “Dance, m’lady?”

Joyce rolled her eyes. “No, no way.”

He took her hand anyway and led her out of her seat, smiling all the way. “Come on, old times’ sake?”

“We _never_ danced together,” she maintained, though the swing of the music was getting to her, lightening her mood even further despite herself.

“And now it’s time to rectify that,” he threw back, and took her other hand. She let him draw her into a silly, swaying dance, let him guide her around the room because god, his hands were so warm. So nice. 

She found herself mouthing along to the lyrics, her movements becoming more wholehearted, and then Will and El and Jonathan came in from the kitchen and gawped at them and well, she was committed now. Hopper led her into a twirl under his arm and she mimed along with her back to his chest, his arms folded over hers.

Jonathan had got his camera out, while Will was flushing furiously and El was grinning in glee. “Mom! You’re so weird!” he said, and El elbowed him in the side.

With a wicked smile, Joyce unwound herself from Hopper’s arms and tugged him down, let him dip her low and kiss her. It was chaste enough, but Will made a long sound of horror and by the time she was upright again he’d turned away, hands clamped over his eyes. 

El was bobbing her head to the music. Hopper beckoned her and Joyce stepped back to let them dance together, the father-daughter dance he never thought he’d see. Then she turned and tugged Will in too, as he protested and struggled halfheartedly, more an awkward teenage boy than ever. But he was smiling, and she was smiling too, and Jonathan was chuckling along.

When the song changed to something slow the kids fell back, laughing, and she went back to Hopper’s arms, his hand gentle on the small of her back. Somehow, they’d made it. They’d made it through and they were here together, as some major miracle. She couldn’t quite believe it, even now. Even three months later. 

“I love you too,” she whispered as she rested her cheek against his chest.

And all the lights were glowing with bright, jubilant warmth, and Hopper’s eyes were blue and kind-

And finally, she could rest.

\--

_Hop,_

_I’ve always been better at writing my feelings than talking about them. You know that, from way back in high school. I used to keep a diary, until Lonnie started reading it. Then I stopped. God, I can picture your face at the very mention of him - but this letter isn’t about Lonnie. That part of my life is long over, even more so now that he’s gone. This letter’s for you._

_I’m running out of ink and my hand hurts, so I’m gonna try to keep this as short as I can. God knows you deserve longer, an essay, a novel - but I think your ego’s big enough as it is. (And don’t even think about making a dick joke.) But I just wanted to say thank you. For everything you’ve done, and continue to do. So many times over the last few years I’ve felt like I’m losing my mind and each time you’ve continued to believe me anyway. I can’t tell you what that means, I really can’t. I’d run out of paper before I even came close._

_After Bob, if you hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened. I don’t know what I would have done. You saw me, I was falling to pieces anyway. But somehow - and this sounds like some godawful love poetry, so don’t mock me too much - you put me back together again. Time after time, really. With Will, right at the start of it all, and then in that whole terrible year after. You came with us to the Lab, and you didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to do any of it - you didn’t have to put your job on the line believing me about Will, but you did it anyway. I still don’t know why. It doesn’t matter, in the end. What matters is what you did for us, what you did for me, and what I hope you’ll always be around to do._

_There was a time I thought Lonnie ruined me. When he left I was lonely for so long, until Bob, and then he died and I really thought I was cursed. Learning what Lonnie did to me - that he’s the one who took me to Brenner, to the Lab - just made it all worse. All the men in my life have betrayed me or left, except you (and my boys, of course). I really, truly didn’t see myself having a relationship at all after Bob died. But then I found myself needing you so much, more and more, and I couldn’t imagine life without you. And then you suddenly pulled back, with no explanation, the day Brenner took me the second time. You pulled back and the whole time Brenner had me it was in the back of my mind, wondering what I’d done. If maybe you weren’t coming for me after all. I think I decided, then, that we couldn’t go on like that. Something had to give._

_And then in the hospital, the next day, when you gave me those Camel Filters, it was this reminder of how well you know me, and how well I know you. I feel like we’re bound up together, after all these years. If I believed in destiny I’d say that’s what it is, but it’s less mystical than that. It’s sharing cigarettes like we’re still those kids skipping class under the steps. It’s being there for our kids, and buying their fucking Eggos, and going to sleep together and waking up beside each other. It’s you believing me even though the world and its wife are telling you not to._

_This isn’t a love letter, although it’s turning into one. I just wanted to let you know some of the shit that’s been swirling around in my head for weeks, months. Years, even._

_That’s my problem. I think too much. I think so goddamn much. If it exists, I’ve fucking thought it. Lonnie called me crazy, the doctor called it anxiety. I don’t have a word for it, it just happens. I try not to let it overwhelm me, but sometimes it does. Those times have been getting lesser lately. And some of that - hell, probably quite a lot of that - is you. I can’t pretend it’s going to go away, because I’m pretty sure it won’t. I’ve been living with it for nearly thirty years, so I know. But you help, Hop. I feel safe with you. And you know how I get, so you know what an achievement that is. And my boys - they feel safe with you too. Even Jonathan, and I’ll quote Bob - he’s a tough cookie to crack. Bob never got anywhere with him, but somehow you’re the father he never really had. You’ve been so good to my family, and honestly I can’t ever repay you enough._

_This is getting long. This pen’s nearly done - can you see the ink fading? I haven’t got much more to say, I promise._

_I know I’m not the only one with issues. I know you have your own shit too. The worst nights are when we both wake up with nightmares, and we can’t help each other. Vietnam, Sara - shit I can only imagine. That I don’t want to imagine, let alone live through. More often than not you’re there for me, rather than the other way around. But I think we can look after each other, right? We’ve made it this far._

_April was its own nightmare. For both of us. I unearthed memories I didn’t even know I had, and made some really fucking awful new ones. I still catch myself wondering if I’m not permanently broken, somehow fucked up and twisted inside, because of what happened to me all those years ago. But then I have to remember that we all have scars, and we all heal eventually, even if it leaves a mark. Even if it twinges occasionally. El went through the same thing I did, after all, only ten times worse, and she’s such a bright spark it’s easy to forget. She’s not broken, neither are you, and neither am I - and maybe we’re not perfect, but we can be okay together. That’s what counts, in the end. It’s all that counts._

_Jonathan will go to college, and Will and El will follow him not too long after. With any luck we’ll grow old and gray, and have lots of annoying grandchildren that you’ll pretend to dislike but really adore more than any of us. Or, I don’t know, maybe we’ll just get a dog. But if there’s one thing I can say - and I’ve already said a lot - it’s that there’s no one I’d rather grow old with._

_\- Joyce_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow. what a wild ride. honestly i nearly cried rereading this chapter, because it's been a long time coming and i'm very proud of how i finished it off. the letter, although a cliche, was something i wanted to do, especially after st3 did it. it's my own little homage :) thank you all for reading and bookmarking and kudos'ing and commenting, it's really been lovely. this fic hasn't gotten the biggest attention but what attention it has gotten has been so so nice to receive. shoutout to @tightropeflea on tumblr for hyping me up pretty much from the beginning.
> 
> the song they dance to is hungry heart by bruce springsteen. fun fact - it was featured in show me a hero, a miniseries which winona starred in. 
> 
> also, spot the winona reference? ;)
> 
> and please, please let me know what you thought of this chapter, or the whole thing! even if it's just to let me know you got this far lol this fic is looong. anyway, i love you all xx


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